book review
Salina20013
j.ctt1vhtrh3.8.pdf
University of Georgia Press
Chapter Title: Amanda Trulock (1811–1891) Yankee Mistress of the Old South Chapter Author(s): GARY T. EDWARDS
Book Title: Arkansas Women Book Subtitle: Their Lives and Times Book Editor(s): Cherisse Jones-Branch, Gary T. Edwards Published by: University of Georgia Press. (2018) Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1vhtrh3.8
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Amanda Trulock (1811-1891)
Yankee Mistress of the Old South
GARY T. EDWARDS
The plantation known as Prairie Place had become a shell of itself by the sum- mer of 1865. "There is nothing on the place," the resident mistress complained, "nor money to get anything with." The following spring she was still uncertain how to proceed. In a letter to her sister, she expressed the full measure of her apathy: "Somehow it seems as though I have nearly lost all interest in almost everything, that I hardly know what is going on around me." Physically and emotionally exhausted from self-described "trials and troubles," she contem- plated taking a trip to "have a little rest." Amanda Trulock was fifty-five when she wrote these words, and after twenty-one years in Arkansas she had accumu- lated her share of struggle and losses: a difficult migration from Georgia and a deceased child, a deceased husband, a destructive war, and the emancipation of her human property. Trulock was justifiably weary. Later that year she followed her own advice and left her grown children behind to "have a little rest" in her native New England. Just a few years earlier she had been certain she would fin- ish out her days on a southern plantation. But she never returned to live in Ar- kansas and passed the last twenty-five years of her life in the region of her birth.1
Amanda Beardsley Trulock (1811-1891) is a rare example of a northern woman, born and raised in Bridgeport, Connecticut, who married a Georgia cotton planter; she later migrated to Arkansas and eventually became a planta- tion proprietor and the sole mistress of sixty-two slaves near Pine Bluff. Like many slaveowning widows of the Old South, Trulock was a very competent financial manager. But she delegated many other responsibilities, a surprising amount, to an enslaved man, Reuben. Their relationship reveals a distinctive example of antebellum enslavement, which combined an unusual mixture of
46
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Amanda Trulock 47
white leniency and black autonomy. Trulock also shares some things in com- mon with the tiny handful of New England women who married into slavehold- ing families at the time. Most informative of these commonalities (or perhaps the most surprising, depending on one's preconceptions) was her immediate acceptance and selective advocacy of slavery during her twenty-nine years of residency in the South. In at least three other areas her personal narrative is un- usual compared to either New England expatriates or native white southerners. First, she actually chose to leave the urban North specifically for a married life in the rural South, unlike most of her female contemporaries who first came as tutors and later married planters.2 Second, she spent every summer of the 18508 in Bridgeport, gradually leaving all her children there to attend school while she returned to Arkansas in the autumn with different members of her extended family. Third, Trulock permanently abandoned the South after the Civil War, again unlike other New England transplants. Arguably, Amanda was in and out of Connecticut so frequently she may have stunted the development of any long-term affinity for the rural South. This was exacerbated during the Civil War, which she viewed more as a trial of personal endurance rather than as a situation in which she should support either side. However, it was suffering the entire war on her plantation that seemed to effectively extinguish her desire to rebuild in a postslavery Arkansas.
Trulock's story is a revealing chronicle about an oscillating identity of place at a time when sectional identity rose to its polarizing apogee. Ultimately her iden- tity took shallow root in the South and returned to its cosmopolitan beginnings. Ironically, Amanda Trulock had little in common with most of the women who lived in Arkansas during her twenty-one years of intermittent residency, but her uniqueness provides a contrast that casts the lives of others in a brighter light. She was an "Arkansas woman" of sorts, but only of the rarest kind and ultimately only on her terms.
In contrast to the voluminous correspondence she wrote while in Georgia and Arkansas, there is comparatively little primary evidence about Amanda Beardsley Trulock before she married and moved to the South. Early genea- logical data point back to a Puritan ancestor, William Beardsley, an artisan who arrived in Connecticut in 1635. During the American Revolution Amanda's great-great-grandfather briefly served as a captain in the Continental Army. By the nineteenth century the Beardsleys of Bridgeport were a respectable family of sufficient means and members of the Congregational Church. Thus Amanda's authentic "Yankee heritage" could not have been better established. The eldest of three children, Amanda remained close to her siblings, Bronson and Marcia, throughout her life. Amanda presumably received a competent
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48 G A R Y T. E D W A R D S
education, based on her many descriptive letters and the interest she showed in the education of her children.3
Amanda Beardsley was already twenty-six years old when she married James Trulock. The circumstances of the young planter's business in Bridgeport are unclear, although the two families shared a common acquaintance in Bain- bridge, Georgia.4 Amanda's relatively advanced age invites speculation about her motive, since matrimony was the catalyst for her dramatically altered life. Even though New England women delayed marriage, Amanda seemed cogni- zant of the implications of her age. Indeed she retrospectively described herself as an "old maid" but appeared resigned, if not content, with that social status. Additionally, the example of her younger sister, Marcia, who never married, suggests that the Beardsleys did not pressure their daughters to take a husband in order to avoid "spinsterhood." Furthermore, Amanda was apparently happy during her twelve years of marriage to "one of the kindest, and most affection- ate of husbands." Her assertive personality in the future strongly suggests that she would not have remained in an unhappy marriage—even in the face of the prevailing social expectations of her time. Last, there was frequent speculation about James and Amanda returning to live in Bridgeport throughout their mar- riage. This is highly suggestive that similar discussions took place during their courtship and that Amanda may have moved to the South thinking she might be away no more than a few years. Taking all this into consideration, it seems plausible that she married James Trulock on terms of her choosing rather than to avoid any negative consequences of remaining unmarried.5
Amanda almost certainly possessed little personal knowledge of black people (free or enslaved) prior to her marriage, but her ready acceptance of slavery when she experienced it in person is an informative reflection of the white mentality in the antebellum North. It is certainly a rebuke to any easy conclu- sions of a broad-based antipathy to the "peculiar institution" by white north- erners in general. In the first place, Amanda received the courtship of James Trulock with the full knowledge of his economic standing. She understood that he owned slaves. She also knew that if she accepted his proposal, she would become a southern plantation mistress of slaves. However, it is also clear from her letters that she could not have comprehended what that really entailed; she seemed largely unfazed by the thought of it at the time. Her courtship and mar- riage are also important reminders that America was very much a nation that was half-slave and half-free in 1837. The Beardsleys were not ardent abolition- ists, although Bronson apparently questioned slaveowner ship's compatibility with Christianity. And while Connecticut was no longer a slave state, it was no bastion of racial equality; indeed, William Lloyd Garrison derided it as the
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Amanda Trulock 49
"Georgia of New England" in 1835. Thus there was no compelling reason that Americans from free states and slave states should not come together in various social exchanges, including matrimony. A young lady from Connecticut would not automatically be repulsed by a Georgia bachelor simply because he owned slaves.6
The day after they were married, Mr. and Mrs. James Trulock began a thirteen- day trip to Georgia, where Amanda met her husband's extended family and ob- served human slavery up close for the first time. Overall, Amanda's description of her initial journey to the South reveals a strong inclination toward approval of all she surveyed. A new bride with a new life set before her, she had every motivation to cultivate an optimistic outlook. Perhaps as anticipated, she found her husband's siblings and mother all perfectly agreeable. And they, in turn, embraced her with sincerity; Amanda noted, "they have a very exalted opinion of the yankees." When the couple finally arrived at James's plantation, Magnolia Place, the effect was truly dramatic. Amanda described a boisterous reunion where all the slaves rushed out to "welcome home their Master and to be in- troduced to their new Mistress, each one separately. I can assure you that was a very interesting scene and one that is entirely out of my power to describe but which will long be remembered by me, as an area of my life worthy of note." Amanda was pulled in by the gravity of this transitional moment. "And then to think of the responsibility and charge that I am about to participate in," she explained, "for life together with thirty Negroes that are consined [sic] to our care, which have souls as well as ourselves, is no trifling thing." However, she simultaneously espoused a benign attitude and confessed that upon arriving in Georgia her opinion was now quite different "with regard to the Negroes . . . for certainly they are the happiest people in the world for they have no cares." Building on this halcyon premise, and fully cognizant that this was now her life too, Amanda summarily validated every aspect of the "peculiar institution." She concluded that slaves did not work half as hard as white farmers in the North; a cook prepared their food especially for them; they sang and danced in the evenings; and they were untroubled by aspirations toward wealth. Within a few days she felt comfortable enough to order them about the house.7
It is plausible to conclude that Amanda fervently hoped to see slavery in a positive light in justification of her matrimonial choice, and her earliest experi- ences all reinforced this. No doubt this was partly facilitated by the enslaved people themselves, who perceived in the arrival of their "Yankee mistress" a rare opportunity to make a good first impression. One may imagine the negative effect of an alternative scenario where Amanda witnessed a violent punishment on the day of her arrival. Instead she saw jubilant slaves who received her almost
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50 G A R Y T. E D W A R D S
like the new queen of their principality. Indeed, this analogy to a feudal state was implied by Amanda when she portrayed Magnolia Place as "a little City of our own in the Pine woods." James further encouraged Amanda, somewhat in the fashion of a medieval monarch. "My dear don't do that," he often chided, "let the Negroes do it." But the strongest adhesive that cemented her early af- finity for slavery was the slave children. No doubt prompted by the adults, the children were precociously attentive to Amanda as they politely greeted her and regularly inquired after her health. She, in turn, found them charming and much less quarrelsome than white children. Through them she grew toward a personal acceptance of the institution of slavery in an ever-broadening way. Within five months Amanda's opinions had solidified. She declared the Trulock slaves "much better off than the Negroes and well might I say, many of the poor white people of the North." Thus Amanda was now like many other slavehold- ers who viewed the loss of personal freedom as an inconsequential effect of an otherwise productive and benevolent social institution.8
Amanda spent the next seven years in Georgia, where she grew fully into her new setting and all that married life entailed. By all accounts she was essentially contented and declared so to her family: "You all thought that I should not like the country... [but] I should think that a country life particularly at the south, would be much more desirable.... I say give me the country where I can enjoy the free and open air and seek my own amusement, independent of any." She had generally good relationships with her husband's extended family and was particularly close to her sister-in-law Elizabeth Trulock, who joined the house- hold in 1841. Amanda was continually learning about her adopted region and frequently compared it to New England. Her letters also reveal an increasing understanding of production costs and the tenuous profit margins on a cotton plantation in the wake of the Panic of 1837. The two greatest changes during this time were motherhood and James's moderate quest for better cotton lands in southwestern Georgia. In prolific succession Amanda gave birth to Victoria (1839), Bronson Van Buren (1840), Felecia (1841), Burton (1842), and Eugenia (1844). Tragically, Felecia died within a few months, yet Amanda accepted it with a resigned fortitude frequently displayed in her correspondence. And when two separate moves within a few miles of their original home proved unsatisfac- tory, James gave full expression to his wanderlust. The Trulocks moved more than five hundred miles away to the southwestern cotton frontier in Arkansas.9
Both the journey and the transition to Arkansas were eventful and difficult. In early 1845 the Trulocks and their slaves traveled by ship from Florida to Pine Bluff. Nearly everyone suffered bouts of violent sea sickness. Many were taken with fever and chills, while all endured excessive rain aboard a poorly heated
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Amanda Trulock 51
ship. Baby Eugenia was overpowered by these issues. She lingered for seven days and died onboard as they traveled up the Mississippi River. Forced to improvise, James and Amanda preserved her remains in whiskey and buried her once they docked. Yet even in her grief Amanda was heartened by some generous pas- sengers who offered their sympathy and shared their medicine with her family. Coincidentally they were also to be some of her new Arkansas neighbors, and she praised them as "the kindest people I ever met with in my life." Fortified by this prospect the Trulocks began their new life, but all, black and white, struggled with illness in their new setting for an extended period. And while the neighbors were an asset, Amanda still found the neighborhood to be a remote frontier society. In particular Arkansas's roads were too rough for travel except by horseback, and there was no suitable school that Amanda could discern. But James had procured a rental house, and the slaves were clearing new fields for cotton. Within a year they were in their own home, which they eventually called Prairie Place, situated about eight miles from Pine Bluff.10
Thus the Trulocks were part of a great influx of cotton planters into the Delta, but Amanda was slow in building affection for her new state. Many of her neighbors believed that Arkansas gave settlers more than their fair share of sickness, especially during the first two years, but afterward, they declared, it was the same as elsewhere. "They would not give Arkansas for any other state they have lived in," Amanda observed, "but I do not think that I can say that." Amanda also discerned that her husband was not as "well pleased" with their new home as he hoped, but he would not say so. One reason he did not speak on the topic was because Amanda and her sister-in-law Elizabeth regularly seized the opportunity: "[We] tell him that we cannot see what his object was in sell- ing out and sacrificing so much to come to this sickly place that Elizabeth and myself keep him strait [sic]." Obviously there was palpable tension among the three white adults in the household, yet some of this appears to be no more than a necessary ventilation of emotions so that life could proceed. Improvements and expansion helped the process along. They hired a tutor, Anne Kirkwood from Massachusetts, and she mitigated their concerns about schooling, but James and Amanda both thought a northern education was in their children's future. Area planters also sent their daughters to study under Kirkwood, which meant that several young girls often resided at the Trulocks, essentially forming a tiny boarding school. Anne also served as a replacement for Elizabeth's role in the household when Elizabeth married William Cantrell and moved a few miles away in 1848. Amanda began to enjoy social calls to other plantations and received ample company in return—even boasting that she had "twenty five to dine at my table several times." And in the midst of it all, Arkansas became
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52 G A R Y T. E D W A R D S
the place of birth of two more sons, Marshall (1848) and James Hines (1849). The Trulocks' enslaved laborers also increased both naturally and through purchase. This opened the possibility of greater financial gain as Amanda and James looked toward their future together. But when it finally arrived, the future proved dramatically different.11
Amanda's life was transformed when her husband became ill and died just before Christmas in 1849. She struggled to find words to explain the heartrend- ing news to her family, "for my feelings can be better imagined than described." Nevertheless, she painted a vivid portrait of James's deathbed and the trauma of her young children, who could not fully comprehend the effects of the death of their father. Widowhood would have been disruptive in any circumstance, but it easily could have instigated the end of her life in Arkansas. And few would have blamed her if it had. The Beardsleys were all in Connecticut and the Trulocks in Georgia, Amanda's children were years away from adulthood, and some fifty slaves wondered what the mistress would do. Amanda's father and brother immediately encouraged her to get her finances in order and move back to Connecticut with the children. However, for the near term at least, Amanda was resolute. She invoked James's wish that the plantation be kept up, and on the surface that seemed a plausible justification, albeit somewhat reactionary in her state of grief. However, Amanda also noted that James had purchased "a great deal of land within the last year which has been a source of anxiety to me" because it had increased their debt. Citing the counsel of her closest ac- quaintances, Amanda announced that she hoped to get out of debt in two years. This course of action seemed to be firmly in her mind even as she informed her family of her widowhood. When her father pressured her to leave Arkansas, she composed her most pointed rebuttal. "You know nothing about a plantation, and slaves," she declared. "And even if you were to come here and stay for years, it would be impossible for you to have the same feelings I have.... it may seem strange to you, but this is my home and it is in my interest to remain here for the present at least." Thus she moved decisively and filed for guardianship over her children, procured supplies to see them all through the next year, and turned her attention to the management of the plantation.12
Amanda accepted the burden of responsibility alone, but she was also well served by three men, two white and one black, during the important transi- tional year of 1850-1851. First, William Cantrell, Elizabeth Trulock's husband, acted as a kind of proxy for his deceased brother-in-law. This was facilitated to an even greater degree by Elizabeth's untimely death just a few months before James's. As a widower himself Cantrell nobly offered his assistance to Amanda, whom he apparently still considered his kin. Amanda was exceptionally grateful
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Amanda Trulock 53
and stated, "I shall expect to have him [to] advise with and have the farm carried on as usual." Cantrell was counted as a member of the household and appears to have been the primary manager of the plantation that year, according to the Census. Next, her brother, Bronson, arrived in the fall and stayed through the winter. It seems likely that he arrived with the intent of persuading his sister to sell everything and leave Arkansas. While working on that goal he provided trustworthy counsel and assistance with her debt management. Although he failed to convince her to move, he at least left with a better understanding of Amanda's affairs, which meant Bronson could offer competent advice in the future. But more surprisingly Bronson seems to be the one who changed his mind. Before he returned to Connecticut he insisted that his sister remain a mistress of slaves. Six years later Amanda reminded him of his powerful words at the time: "You yourself advised me . . . after seeing my peculiar situation, always to keep [these] people with me . . . [that] it would be wrong for me to part with them, and that you would never give your consent to it." Last, and most important in the long term, an enslaved man named Reuben did the most to facilitate Amanda's "peculiar situation." Amanda endowed Reuben with re- markable authority and, although a slave, Reuben acted in a capacity that was comparable to a white overseer or even something akin to a comanager of the plantation.13
Amanda's handling of Prairie Place through Reuben is so unusual that it compels a reexamination of her overall relationship with slavery. It is plausible to conclude that she followed the precedent established by her husband, who was arguably a lenient master based on the evidence. For instance, James was quite comfortable leaving his plantation for months at a time; he allowed slaves to sell their own surplus produce for fifty or sixty dollars in annual income; and he himself had already authorized Reuben to do important managerial tasks, like select and buy mules. Additionally, there is evidence that James must have worked side by side with his slaves on some occasions, such as when they were clearing new land. For her part Amanda had always entrusted the slaves to serve her needs with increasing levels of autonomy in ways that enhanced her own personal freedom. Motherhood stimulated remarkable trust in this regard. Amanda apparently had difficulty breastfeeding, and she sometimes relied on enslaved women for that and otherwise resorted to bottle feeding. This initiated a situation where all of her young children developed such an attachment to their enslaved caregivers that the children often preferred them to Amanda. In fact the first time she left any of them alone, it was for two full nights with only the slaves to watch over her two-year-old and five-month-old. Amanda was also entirely unfazed by the open display of slaves' literacy. Reuben and Orren
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54 G A R Y T. E D W A R D S
sent occasional letters to her and other family members when they visited Con- necticut. Orren even received some religious tracts in return from Amanda's sister, Marcia, which he read and saved with great appreciation. And, while this conclusion is subjective, there is no clear evidence that corporal punishment was regularly dispensed by the Trulocks. Of course it would be very unlikely for Amanda to write her family that she either struck a slave or ordered someone to do so. But the overall texts and tone of her letters leave no strong suggestion of the employment of physical coercion. The only time she wrote of any per- sonal discipline was earlier in Georgia when she "was displeased with one of my house girls and sent her in the fields." On the other hand, Bronsoris observa- tions of Arkansas slavery revealed his revulsion for the violence and abuse that was endemic to enslavement. He chastised whites who "beat their servants in a very savage manner with ropes, whips, [and] sticks of wood." And he deplored "the almost universal licentiousness of the [white] men with the black women [which] is looked upon by most of the white women as a matter of course." But Bronson apparently excluded his sister's household from this condemnation as evidenced by his conclusion that her situation with plantation slavery was "peculiar." In the final analysis Amanda's distinctive relationship with Reuben bears out her unusual personal history with the broader institution of slavery. Thus she generally grew in her advocacy of slavery on terms that may not have been widely practiced by most of her slaveowning peers.14
All things considered, widowhood eventually proved to be a time of greater financial stability for Amanda—made possible in no small part by her deci- sion to allow Reuben greater managerial authority. It's plausible to conclude that the transition to Reuben's oversight was without incident as evidenced by the example where he selected and purchased mules. In that instance Amanda facilitated Reuben's purchase by setting up the details of the payment herself even though James was still alive at the time. This suggests that such coopera- tion between Amanda and Reuben had already become routine. Additionally, Amanda had previously described Reuben's indispensability before her hus- band's death. "It sometimes appears to me," she observed, "that we could not be able to carry on a farm without him and in fine I think that he does better than any white man that Mr. T. could hire which would cost him not less than 400 [dollars] board and all considered." Amanda's conclusion that Reuben was better than a white man must partly be understood as a reflection of the gen- erally low reputation of white overseers across the Old South. However, this also reveals that she understood Reuben's service provided measurable finan- cial savings. His record of dependability only reinforced her decision to rely on him more after she became a widow. For Reuben s part, he later reported to a
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Amanda Trulock 55
Freedmeris Bureau officer that at that tragic moment in her life, Amanda fully
comprehended her vulnerable financial state and pointedly asked for Reuben s
help. She "told him [Reuben] that she had no one to rely upon but him, and
placed her all in his hands." And Reuben, in turn, was moved "by this touching
confidence." Thus Amanda apparently made a conscious decision. She allowed
Reuben s oversight to expand to an unprecedented level.15
Amanda's plantation was largely self-sufficient in food and grew more prof-
itable as evidenced by her frequent descriptions of Reuben's activities. And
Amanda almost exclusively referred to them as if they were essentially in Reu-
ben's domain while she remained focused on the financial, domestic, and social
activities that had always most concerned her. But Reuben frequently conveyed
a fretful disposition to his mistress in which every contingency was a potential
threat to their prosperity. This anxiety informed Amanda's observations, but it
cannot diminish Reuben's demonstrable success over the next decade. For in-
stance, in some years there was not quite enough pork for the plantation's annual
sustenance, but most of the time there was. In 1853, after Reuben supervised the
butchering of seventy hogs (including forty-eight in a day), Amanda observed
that he was in high spirits over the prospect that "we shall not have meat to buy
[this year]." Likewise, Prairie Place raised such a prodigious crop of corn, in-
creasing from 2,500 bushels in 1850 to 6,000 bushels in 1860, that there was often
a marketable surplus. More important, the cotton crop was robust as Reuben in-
creased it from 140 bales in 1850 to an incredible 450 bales before the Civil War.
A primary reason for this was the accompanying increase in improved acreage
(cleared and fenced land) overseen by Reuben. Prairie Place went from 300 to
550 improved acres during this period. Reuben was persistent in expanding the
plantation's tillable acreage, as Amanda noted: "no matter what he has to do
he will clear some land every year." To maximize efficiency more outbuildings
were constructed. While Reuben consulted Amanda on their placement, there
is a sense in her descriptions that she did not have any preference, other than
that they be completed, so Reuben decided independently in many cases. For
instance, a bigger warehouse was needed to store the baled cotton until it could
be shipped. According to Amanda, Reuben selected a location and then changed
his mind and built it "not far from the gin house as he did not like to risque [sic]
the cotton so far from home." A new gin house turned into a concern when they
agreed to upgrade to steam power. Amanda perceived that the complexity of the
new technology vexed Reuben: "this gin house troubles him very much because
he does not understand it to his satisfaction [and he] is afraid that we shall be
affected some way." Eventually, Reuben was satisfied, and Amanda no longer
wrote of it after skilled workmen installed it and cotton production increased.16
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5<5 G A R Y T. E D W A R D S
Amanda surely had disagreements with Reuben, but the only ones she men- tioned were related to his seemingly unbridled ambition to expand agricultural operations. In this regard there is further evidence of Reuben s unconventional position in Amanda's household as she described his success at an annual com- petition against local white planters to see who could produce the most per hand. "The most trying time with him is the Spring of the year," she explained, "particularly if he is not ahead of his neighbors." A surprising comment reveals the full scope of his autonomy; Amanda once lamented that he was actually planting too much cotton. "I thought the hands would have to work to [sic] hard," she reasoned, "but when he has his mind made up on any one thing, it is almost impossible to change it." If Amanda had really wanted less cotton planted, it seems that it would have been so. Her concession is indicative of her easy acceptance of Reuben s greater agricultural knowledge and that time generally validated most of his decisions.17
Ironically, Amanda's greatest conflict with Reuben was in response to his un- usual proposition that she should buy additional slaves. The issue arose when Reuben concluded that the neighbors were purchasing more slaves and he felt as if Prairie Place was losing ground by comparison. He approached Amanda with a specific request to be allowed to "have all he made over sixteen thousand dollars next year—that he might invest it in blacks . . . as Mistress was so unwilling to buy any." Amanda could not casually dismiss Reuben's idea because he apparently knew exactly how much money she needed each year, so he requested accord- ingly. Furthermore, he pressed her constantly on the topic for several months. She took his proposal seriously, but it presented a genuine conundrum in her eyes. "If I continually try to keep him back and oppose all of his plans for advancing the interest of the place," she explained, "I shall be the means of killing his ambition and deadening his energies—in which case what will become of the place [?]" Amanda's family—her father, Bronson, and Marcia—were all consulted on the idea since Reuben's proposal ultimately exposed one of Amanda's previously un- stated convictions. She did not want to buy more enslaved people. In what must have been the final word in one of their periodic exchanges on the issue, Amanda attempted to extinguish the entire idea: "I told him [Reuben] a few days since that I did not expect to buy any more [slaves] and that I did not want them even if they were given to me." This was a remarkably candid confession. In every other respect regarding agricultural production, Amanda always followed Reuben's counsel. This, however, was apparently a line that Amanda did not wish to cross, and it would never have come to light but for Reuben's persistence.18
Upon closer examination this incident tells us something about how Amanda's slaves perceived slavery and how Amanda's family perceived their status as
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Amanda Trulock 57
slaveowners through her. While Reuben's true reasons for his proposal can- not be entirely discerned, it is plausible that he was simply motivated by self- preservation. It eventually came to light that local planters often goaded Reuben that Amanda was only interested in the cash value of the plantation and that she would certainly sell out and return to the North. On this occasion Reuben was disturbed by a credible neighborhood rumor that Amanda might receive an offer of $100,000 for the whole place, including the slaves. On the verge of tears he pleaded with her to seek the advice of Bronson before she left for the summer since Reuben feared the family in Connecticut would persuade her to accept. Seen in this light Reuben s proposal makes more sense. It was his pre- emptive counteroffer to make Amanda just as rich, the only way he knew how, and without the sale of anyone close to him. With this hypothesis in mind, all of Reuben s success at plantation management can be reimagined in a different light. What Amanda saw as Reuben's ambition for its own sake, or simply to outdo the other plantations in the neighborhood, may have actually been his long-term strategy to continue the status quo under a lenient mistress. At the same time this episode demonstrates that all the Beardsleys had been pulled deeper into slavery by Amanda's widowhood. The Beardsleys were resigned to the fact that through Amanda they were a family of slaveowners, but none could apparently tolerate the thought of being slave traders too. Amanda referenced a letter from her father that seemed to finally put the issue to rest. Beardsley had apparently sent his daughter extensive calculations that supported his ideas about the plantation far into the future. "I read it to Reuben," she wrote, "[and] he was pleased with it." Although she appreciated her father's input, Amanda was uncertain if she could "apply it to a practical use as I am not in the habit of looking forward a hundred years." This sounds cryptically like he may have proposed some kind of gradual emancipation for the next generation. Whatever her father meant, Amanda did not purchase any more slaves while she observed that Reuben's disposition improved that spring.19
An incident involving an enslaved woman named Caroline reveals Amanda's experience as a slaveowner to have been more typical than does the evidence from her relationship with Reuben. The sudden pregnancy of Caroline, an im- portant house worker who was regularly mentioned in Amanda's letters, in- spired dialogue over the topic of paternity. Responding to her sister's inquiry Amanda answered, "you wished to know who was Caroline's favored one, it was one of the workmen, I do not know as anything will ever come to light." Pre- sumably this referred to one of the men who briefly had stayed on the plantation during the construction of the new cotton-gin house. This incident raises some interesting ideas about her relationship with her slaves because Amanda had
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ascertained that the child's father was white before Caroline gave birth. Such knowledge would primarily have come from Caroline. It seems that it did, Amanda believed her—and indeed it turned out to be so. Amanda later ob- served that Caroline's daughter was "certainly quite a pretty baby and as white as any child for anything I can see at present—quite to[o] bad! Don't you think so?" In many respects Amanda's response to Caroline's child reinforced her brother's observation that white women tacitly accepted biracial children as an immutable fact of plantation life. However, as a widow without any sons living at home at that particular time, Amanda was relieved of the anxiety of wonder- ing if the men in her family were sexually exploiting any enslaved women.20
Widowhood and the sustainability of Prairie Place allowed Amanda to re- connect with her New England roots to a degree that never existed when she was married. Up to now her physical connection with Connecticut had been intermittent, but she and James had still managed three visits to Bridgeport over the course of their marriage. However, the Trulocks had also expressed a desire for their children to be educated in the North, and eighteen months after James's death the time seemed right to Amanda. The older children had initially continued their studies under the tutelage of Anne Kirkwood, but when she took other employment Amanda carried Victoria (age twelve), (Bronson) Van Buren (age eleven), and Burton (age eight) to Bridgeport in the summer of 1851. Leaving three of her five living children under the care of her family virtually guaranteed that she would return to Connecticut every summer. In an ironic twist, the decade generally proved to be a period of familial stability even though Amanda was separated from those children most of that time.21
Amanda's annual migrations to Connecticut were highly uncommon in the nineteenth century. Such regular travel to New England would have distin- guished her among most company in the antebellum South, but among Ar- kansans it was truly extraordinary. Even though members of the planter elite traveled regularly, her 2,8oo-mile round trip every summer and autumn was distinctive. The vast majority of the mileage was traveled by boat with the Ar- kansas River being the most capricious section due to low water levels. Conse- quently, the travel time varied widely, and the trip could take twenty to thirty days one way. However, railroad connections improved dramatically, and by the end of the decade she might travel by rail to Chicago and then Cairo, Illi- nois, where she resumed via water. And in a striking display of her independent spirit, there is no clear evidence that she regularly traveled with any adult males. Instead, she developed a pattern where a different female family member would return with her to Arkansas for the winter and then travel back with her to Con- necticut the following summer. Amanda typically left Arkansas in the later part
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of June and returned in October. She was able to leave because Reuben and all the other slaves carried on so efficiently, apparently without any white adults regularly present.22
By 1851 Amanda regularly left Prairie Place to Reuben and the other enslaved people for months at a time. Amanda apparently considered this routine and left no hint of any special justification for this action. Besides, Reuben already managed the farming activities, so if all the white adults temporarily left, there were no pressing domestic activities to oversee until they came home. Whenever Amanda returned, the manner of Reuben s reception indicates that he had been given authority to watch over the place during her absence. Returning from her first annual journey to Connecticut after James's death, she described her plea- sure at what she found. "Reuben had everything done that lay in his power," she exclaimed, "had the house all cleaned and scoured, and the carpet down and curtains all put up, and everything done that I requested." Indeed, Reuben typi- cally did extra things, like build a new smokehouse or kitchen, while Amanda was away and often had pound cake and pumpkin pies ready in abundance upon her arrival. Whenever she returned via steamboat, the vessel cruised past the border of her property and stopped at the plantation's dock, which was still a considerable distance from the house. On one occasion the boat inauspi- ciously arrived at midnight, and she assumed the captain would have to ring the bell only to discover "before the boat had landed Reuben, Ephraim, and Orren [were already] there with two horses for us." Indeed, when the boats could not run up the Arkansas River she would send word from the Mississippi River town of Napoleon, Arkansas, for Reuben to come and fetch her. Overall, Reu- ben seemed to have such command of the place while she was in Connecticut that even her two youngest boys were apparently entrusted to his care. Hines, at two years old, was so young he no longer recognized her when she returned that first autumn. But Hines accompanied Amanda in 1856 and spent the rest of his childhood in Connecticut starting in 1857. Thus, by 1856, Prairie Place became devoid of white inhabitants entirely during Amanda's annual treks to the North.23
Because Amanda's travel between the two main sections of the country coin- cided with the burgeoning sectional tensions of the 18508, it invites speculation as to whether she ever displayed any strong support for either place. For the most part she did not, since her situation compelled the exercise of personal diplomacy in the matter. Amanda chose to live part of each year in the two sec- tions of the country that were growing increasingly suspicious of one another. With all of her family in one section and all of her finances in the other, she seemed to favor the stability of an equilibrium between the two. This was the
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only way to live peacefully among her neighbors in both places. However, the mere fact of her regularity in appearing in and disappearing from one section and then the other must have rendered her a conspicuous source of informa- tion to curious people in both regions. It can be instructive to compare her with the example of the contemporary figure Frederick Law Olmsted, a northerner who famously traveled south during the same decade. Olmsted wrote so that northern readers could understand a region few would ever visit, and, perhaps predictably, he was critical of the Old South.24 Amanda had no need of such sec- ondhand knowledge because she already possessed an intimate understanding of both areas. And she had good reason to refrain from open criticism of either region as long as she lived in both.
Still, there were some cultural differences that continued to bind Amanda to New England and others that bound her to the South. The clear preference for a New England education was one, even though James had also shared it, and it was especially fortuitous that Kirkwood had arrived from Massachusetts to be the family tutor. Additionally, Amanda was frequently sentimental (a rarity for her) about missing Thanksgiving in Connecticut. This was exclusively a New England holiday at the time, and the fact that it was largely unobserved in the South served to deepen her uncharacteristic melancholy over the occasion. We can never know other things, like whether Amanda had a strong accent that identified her as a native New Englander. It's possible that she borrowed speech from both regions just enough to sound like an outsider in each. Along that same line Reuben once joked that her continual trips might eventually "make a yankee" of her before she was done. On the other hand, Amanda's residence on a southern plantation made her seem culturally bound to the South by default. And in one important respect she was culturally very close to southern com- mon folk: Amanda lived in a log cabin. Prairie Place was apparently a nice log home with a hall and a few modest rooms. Amanda made improvements to it, like adding an extra chimney and accessorizing with curtains and carpets, but it was not a Greek Revival mansion. While it was not uncommon for antebellum planters to live in a cabin on the frontier, many chose to build something more substantial within their first decade. Amanda certainly could have afforded a beautiful mansion, but financing her children's education and traveling to visit them were more important. This also must have suited her temperament since she once declared that she did not envy the "splendid mansions" of some of her neighbors. Confirming this view, she even began to refer to the house as "Prairie Cottage," which better reflected its unpretentious style. At six years old even young Hines understood the difference and amused Amanda when he complained that they lived in a "hut."25
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By the end of the antebellum era, Amanda had achieved much for herself and her family in Arkansas and Connecticut. She had become a shrewd cot- ton planter through the vital service of Reuben and established an honorable but savvy reputation as a businesswoman. In recognition of this her neighbors periodically solicited her financial help. She loaned some of them money at 10 percent interest, and in some cases held mortgages as security. Land that she did not wish to cultivate was often rented to various tenants. Amanda was also opportunistic. Once she bought land and paid for it with baled cotton. She reckoned that the difference in the price of local cotton versus the price in New Orleans, after accounting for the expense of shipping, was a better tradeoff dur- ing that particular phase of the market cycle. She also received offers to buy her entire estate in recognition of her success but did not seriously entertain them. In one curious case Amanda was briefly pursued (via letter) by a shameless gold digger. The fact that he learned of her through passenger gossip on a steamboat to Little Rock only reinforces the breadth of Amanda's reputation as a woman of means. She summarily dismissed the flirtatious charlatan as deranged but entertaining. Ultimately, and most important, the prosperity of Prairie Place extended all the way to Bridgeport. Amanda had long been sending money for her father to invest on her behalf, especially after she became a widow. Evidence from the 1860 Census suggests that Amanda's children and the extended family were basing their livelihoods, some entirely and others partially, on the profits of the cotton plantation in Arkansas.26
Although the 18508 were a time of rising national anxiety over slavery, Amanda was arguably an apolitical person who was seldom impassioned by the polar- izing sectional politics of her era. Her husband had been a staunch Democrat who wore his politics on his sleeve. Likewise, her sister, Marcia, seemed to be developing an affinity for the Republicans as early as the 1856 election. When the Democrats won the contest, Amanda playfully teased, "Hurra[h]l for Bu- channan [sic]!' But that was a rare outburst. Although she regularly read news- papers filled with political opinion, she usually limited her discussion of them to personal items. Even when Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) instigated a firestorm of rhetoric, her commentary was only that the book had caused "a great stir." But the most political and revelatory confession of Amanda's truest feelings about slavery as an institution is revealed in her enthusiasm for another novel: The Cabin and Parlor. Her cousin Nellie, visiting from Con- necticut, read the entire book aloud while Amanda recovered from an illness one winter. Amanda was struck by what she considered the book's insightful portrayal of what slavery was like in reality. She was eager to recommend it to her family. "I wish you would get it and read it aloud," she exclaimed. "Also tell
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Mr. L. Sterling I wish he would read it as I think that will give him a more cor- rect idea of slavery or rather a more correct idea of it than I could give him." The recommendation that an acquaintance read it reveals that slavery was discussed and debated during Amanda's visits to Connecticut. In fact, it sounds rather like a particular argument had occurred, and Amanda was offering a rejoinder in the form of this novel.27 Her strong endorsement of this text offers the best opportunity to comprehend what Amanda thought, for in understanding it we may better understand her.
The Cabin and Parlor was one of many proslavery novels written as a reac- tionary protest against Uncle Toms Cabin. The briefest synopsis of the book reveals common themes and stock characters from the genre of anti-Tom litera- ture but also striking similarities to Amanda's own life. The story begins with Uncle Peter, a kindly old slave who manages the family plantation to the great satisfaction of all. But upon the planter's death his adult son and daughter, Hor- ace and Isabel, must sell everything and seek work to support their mother. Isabel becomes a teacher, and Horace migrates north, where he suffers and dies as a "white slave" of industrial capitalism. During his pitiful demise, Horace is befriended by a southern slaveowner named Walworth, who regularly travels to the North and carries his dying words back to Isabel. A romance ensues, and Walworth recoups the plantation, including the slaves, after he marries Isabel. All the while, Uncle Peter has been especially sympathetic toward Isabel and only wishes to repay her for her family's kindness. At the end he is content to once again be her slave. The novel's penultimate paragraph has Uncle Peter re- fusing emancipation: "No, God bless yer, I'd rather be a slave here, under a good masser, dan a free colored man North. By'm bye, p'raps, my chil'en may take yer offer, ef de Lord, by dat time, opens de way for de African." The conclusion admonishes elite whites to be benevolent in their authority: "Whether you live in the North or the South, be the good master,... the laboring classes, be they called operatives or slaves, have no friend but God, if you, their employers or owners, are not that friend."28
Amanda's approval of this novel could tell us many things, but it suggests at least two important ideas. First, it is easy to conclude that Amanda saw in Uncle Peter her own slave Reuben. In reality Reuben was more complicated than Amanda may have ever realized, but on the surface he seemed much like Uncle Peter. This must have validated her idealized view of Reuben as a slave who simply wanted to serve for the sake of service itself. Second, the book was a pointed indictment against the "white enslavement" of the laboring poor in the North at the hands of heartless capitalists. This could have allowed Amanda to draw a comparison in which black enslavement was infinitely better. Ironically,
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what supposedly made slavery better was its permanence. Slaves should not be emancipated; if they were, the implication was that they would surely suffer an even worse fate than that currently endured by the "white slaves" of the North. This justification fit with Amanda's earliest experiences in Georgia and was probably reinforced by her brother when he admonished her to keep her human property. After all these years Amanda was at ease with slavery and in her own way she was ready to defend it on terms that reflected her experience.
Amanda's world was transformed by the Civil War, which set events into motion that ultimately convinced her to return to Connecticut permanently. Initially, Amanda probably saw the war as nothing more than a great inconve- nience to be briefly endured. She made her annual trip to Bridgeport during the summer of 1860, but it is not clear who, if anyone, returned with her in the autumn. She did not attempt to visit Connecticut in 1861, but her oldest son, Bronson Van Buren Nichols (now called Nichols), apparently managed to re- unite with her that year. At twenty-one years old Nichols was now the first white adult male to reside at Prairie Place in a decade. Postal service was disrupted in 1861, and mother and son lost all communication with Connecticut for the next two years. But the war did not physically come to their doorstep until the Union army occupied Pine Bluff in September 1863. Up to that time, life at Prairie Place must have been close to normal except for the growing instability of the cotton market. Amanda reported that they still had sufficient food, with the exception of coffee, and apparently all the slaves continued the plantation's routine despite the uncertain future. A return to Connecticut was not viable, so Amanda and her son endured most of the war together.29
In many respects, Nichols and his younger brother Burton serve as the best evidence of Amanda's war experience and overall attitude toward the conflict. Through them we may perceive her resignation to endure the war as a personal burden rather than a societal one. Likewise, her sons reflect her ambiguous atti- tude toward the Confederate and Union causes alike. First and foremost Nichols was an apparently healthy young man who, despite his age and situation, never served in the Confederate military—and never wanted to serve either side, for that matter. This suited Amanda, who purchased him a draftee replacement for more than $3,000 in Confederate script and lavished praise on her son for his devotion to her comfort and security. In her first letter to Connecticut after the Union occupation of Pine Bluff, she declared that no child could have done more for their mother than Nichols had for her during the previous two years. "He has stayed by me night and day and done everything that he could . . . while other young men have left their mothers to get along the best they could," she explained. "I hope he will be remembered for it." This is a shockingly honest
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confession. Amanda was proud of her son for staying beside her, rather than joining the Confederate army like scores of other young men in the neighbor- hood. Amanda would never have vocalized this pride in Arkansas. However, considering the intended audience for her letter, it reveals that the Beardsleys would have agreed. Nichols's duty was to Amanda first. And the Confederate cause, in particular, was not worthy of the family's voluntary support. Second, it appears that Amanda and Nichols took oaths of loyalty to the Union fairly soon after the occupation. This is evidenced by their open participation in the cot- ton market in the spring of 1864. Producing cotton inside federal lines entailed numerous restrictions, not the least of which was the disavowal of rebellion. However, this probably should not be viewed as ardent Unionism on their part. More likely it conveys detachment from the politics of both causes and the de- sire to return to the antebellum status quo.30
Equally important, Burton was no more a willing combatant than his older brother. Amanda addressed a topic of family debate as to whether Burton should join his mother and brother in Arkansas in 1863. She worried that it was "to[o] great a risk . . . [as] they will soon be conscripting all in this vicinity." However, Amanda was obviously worried that either side might come for Burton when she speculated that she could no longer acquire the amount necessary to pur- chase a Union army substitute. "I do not suppose we have got three hundred dollars in greenbacks," she concluded. In the spring of 1864 the brothers traded places: Nichols went back to Connecticut, and Burton returned to Arkansas to help his mother. It was a short-lived reunion as Burton was conscripted by the Confederates within a few weeks. Amanda took comfort that both sons had not been caught in the draft, although it was disconcerting to wait out the year until Burton came home. For the rest of the war, she cautioned Nichols to stay in Connecticut since she believed he would "have to go immediately into one or the other armys [sic]" if he returned.31
The neighborhood around Prairie Place spiraled down into a state of societal chaos in late 1863 as Amanda stoically endured the final nineteen months of the war. Although the U.S. Army secured Pine Bluff, the outlying regions devolved into a no-man's land controlled by neither side but picked over by both as well as by bands of Confederate deserters. Amanda described the inexorable loss of nearly everything that could be carried off unless she hid it. She wryly noted in the summer of 1864 that she mostly spent her time in moving and hiding her "things from place to place and then in looking for them when I want them." After Burton was conscripted, Amanda was entirely alone except for one for- merly enslaved woman, America, and her young children. Amanda exhibited genuine gratitude for America s presence and confessed, "the truth is I could
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not remain here on this place [without her]." When another former slave, Harry, returned in the autumn, Amanda felt some relief. She still had several bushels of corn well hidden, and they even sowed some winter wheat for the coming spring. Despite the loss of so much, Amanda remained modestly hopeful that they could now all "get along quite comfortably through the winter." But she doubted they could remain there another year without some change.32
There is no record as to the precise moment when Amanda knew that eman- cipation was inevitable, but there is some information about the moment of its final fulfillment at Prairie Place. The evidence suggests that all the Trulock slaves had left her and Nichols in the autumn of 1863. It is likely that some of them soon returned and apparently stayed on as contracted laborers. On December 7, 1863, she wrote that "the servants we have hired here are sick a good deal." This reference is the first clear indication that emancipation had actually occurred. Six enslaved men on the place used their new freedom to join the Union army. All the others seemed to be working on local abandoned plantations under federal oversight. Amanda received occasional news about them and noted, "Reuben and many others are still on the Roan [sic] place." By his own account, Reuben stayed with Amanda till the end. In an exchange that was summarized in a Freedmeri s Bureau report, Reuben explained to the agent that all the other slaves left Prairie Place before he and his family did. Only after Union officers assured Reuben that the Emancipation Proclamation was true, and only then, "he also came quietly in." At that moment Reuben was finally a free man and Amanda was no longer a slaveowner.33
Amanda had the rest of the war and, in some ways, the rest of her life to ru- minate over the outcomes of emancipation. Still, she expressed early cynicism that freedom could not meet the expectations of those who viewed it as a pana- cea. For instance, two months before the end of the war she noted that her former slaves still had not received their pay for last year's work on the Roane Plantation. She further calculated that "eighteen of our servants have died since they left this place.... that is more than have died in twenty years before." With biting sarcasm she concluded, "so, you see they are freeing them very fast." This comment overlaid a deep reservoir of emotion that only emancipation could have tapped. Obviously, she viewed the liberty of black people as a chaotic and even lethal policy. But she confused the effects of emancipation with the effects of war on all refugees, which was dire for black and white alike. We may also return to her worldview, exemplified in The Cabin and Parlor, that enslave- ment had enabled black people to flourish under the controlled protection of the plantation. Releasing them into a free labor market was cruel and unjust. Reuben himself demonstrated the vicissitudes of freedom. He apparently had
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been given the position of "boss-workman" at the Roane Plantation. But with payment delayed for all of the workers, Amanda learned that he too was forced to survive through the most common of labor. "Reuben was [now] cutting boat- wood," she declared, "just like an[y] other nigger." Amanda had never before referred to him in this way. Her usage of this epithet was uncharacteristic, and it laid bare the intensity of her bitterness at his abandonment. Ironically, Reuben s successful plantation management must have further reinforced Amanda's in- verted view of human nature, at least for people of color. Although Amanda could not see it, Reuben had never flourished because of enslavement but in spite of it.34
Amanda stayed in Arkansas for a year after the war, but she already seemed ready to leave the plantation to her children and return to New England. Burton returned from Confederate service in the summer of 1865, and in the autumn Victoria joined them from Bridgeport. Finally Amanda returned in the sum- mer of 1866 to Connecticut, where the rest of her family must have greeted her warmly. She rested in the knowledge that two of her grown children watched over the plantation. The others would inevitably follow to claim the legacy created by their father, protected by their mother, and expanded by a slave. It's not clear if Amanda planned to remain in Connecticut permanently in 1866 or if this was intended to be the renewal of her antebellum travel pattern. However, her adventurous zest for long-distance travel had clearly evaporated. In 1865 she had declared, "I feel as though I have lost all confidence in my traveling capacity." Thus Amanda may have thought that if she could ever see Bridgeport again, she would never leave it. The remaining children in Connecticut spent much of 1867 preparing to return to Arkansas to join their siblings in the fall. Amanda must have had plenty of time to think through whether she would go with them. It seems she made a conscious choice not to go back to Arkansas, even to be with her children. Furthermore, there was now palpable sibling ri- valry over the future control of Prairie Place specifically and financial squabbles generally. Amanda lamented, "I cannot allow myself to think very strongly on the subject without almost making me sick." This may have given her extra incentive to remain in New England where she could play the peacemaker for her children from afar. However she came to her decision, by 1870 so many changes had transpired that Amanda must have long since resolved to leave well enough alone. All four of her sons lived at Prairie Place along with Nichols's wife and their two-year-old son. Amanda's youngest son, James Hines, turned twenty-one that year, and as adults everyone had to come to a mutual under- standing on the long-term division of the estate. Victoria had married a Union officer in Arkansas, given birth to a daughter, Clara, and then suddenly died at
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the age of thirty. Victorias husband sent Clara to Connecticut, where Amanda and Marcia raised her together. The two sisters shared a house on Park Avenue in Bridgeport, where Amanda died in 1891. She apparently never returned to Arkansas again.35
Amanda Beardsley Trulock is a curious anomaly in the history of Arkansas's women. She embodies so many counterintuitive impulses that she defies easy categorization: she was a native of urban Bridgeport, but she was perfectly at ease on a rural Delta cotton plantation; she was a slaveowner who defended slavery, but she would not participate in the slave market; she was a Yankee who lived in the Confederacy, but she attempted to keep her sons from fighting for either side; and she was a mother who longed to be with her children, but she was absent for most of their childhoods. In the final analysis she is too distinc- tive to be very representative of Arkansas women of her era. This seems to be punctuated by her deeper and more abiding affinity for New England. Of course if James had lived to an old age, the story would have gone differently. Thus, if we return to the narrative arc of her life, the decisive crossroads seems to have been when she became a widow. Why did she not return to Connecticut then? The answer is threefold. She did not return because of James's wish to continue the plantation for the ultimate benefit of their children; because of the couple's joint desire to educate the children in the North, which could be financed by the plantation; and because of her own revulsion at the consequences of releasing any of her slaves, which was apparently shared by her family. However, one way or another, these three issues were all resolved by 1866. With that being the case, nothing compelled Amanda's presence in Arkansas. Furthermore, the trauma of the war and the arduous chore of rebuilding was unappealing compared to the comforting familiarity of Connecticut with its extensive network of kin and nostalgic memories. And Amanda knew that her children could always make the trip to Bridgeport just as she did. In the end, Amanda's life is a surprising example of the exception to the rule. Her greatest value is that she helps us see the Arkansas women of her era by showing us the ways in which she was dif- ferent from most of them.
NOTES
i. This chapter is primarily based on approximately 150 letters written by Amanda Beardsley Trulock from 1837 to 1867 and a few others written by her husband, James, and daughter Victoria. I cite both the Trulock Family Papers, University of Arkansas Libraries, Special Collections, Fayette- ville (hereafter UAFSC), and the Trulock Family Letters, University of Central Arkansas Archives, Conway (hereafter UCAA). For the information in this paragraph, see Amanda Trulock to brother,
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February 4, 1857, UCAA; Amanda Trulock to son and daughter, July 20,1865, Amanda Trulock to sister, May 9,1866, both UAFSC.
Trulock has been the subject of two theses: Sarah Brooke Malloy, "The Health of Our Family: The Correspondence of Amanda Beardsley Trulock, 1837-1868," master's thesis, University of Ar- kansas, 2005; Rebecca Norman Prestwood, "Amanda Trulock: A Connecticut Yankee in Antebellum Arkansas," master's thesis, University of Central Arkansas, 1996.
2. Tryphena Fox and Dolly Lunt Burge are two well-known examples, from Massachusetts and Maine, respectively, of tutors who married southern slaveholders. Northern migrants to the Old South tended to have more antislavery feelings than native southerners, but this was highly subject to their unique circumstances, and many became more proslavery over time. Wilma King-Hunter, ed., A Northern Woman in the Plantation South: Letters of Tryphena Blanche Holder Fox, 1856-1876 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1993); Christine Carter, ed., The Diary of Dolly Lunt Burge, 1848-1879 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006); Dennis Rousey, "Friends and Foes of Slavery: Foreigners and Northerners in the Old South," Journal of Social History 35 (Winter 2001):
373-96. 3. Nichols Beardsley is listed among the pew holders at the Congregational Church in 1835. By
1850 he had accumulated $7,000 in real estate wealth. U.S. Census, 1850, Fairfield County, Conn., 2; Samuel Orcutt, A History of the Old Town of Stratford and the City of Bridgeport, Connecticut (Fair- field County Historical Society, 1886), 1:633, 2:1130,1142; Application of Trulock Burton Hatheway, in Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970 (Louisville, Ky: National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution), 244:216-18; Malloy, "Health of Our Family," 3.
4. Trulock family lore suggests that James had an additional acquaintance who was the captain of a ship that frequented Bridgeport, and he supposedly provided mutual introductions. Walter N. Trulock, "A Family Memoir," Jefferson County Historical Quarterly 8, no. i (1979): 30-33.
5. In 1850 the median age of first marriage for women in New England has been estimated, by some, to be as high as 24.9 years. J. David Hacker, Libra Hilde, and James Holland Jones, "The Effect of the Civil War on Southern Marriage Patterns," Journal of Southern History 76, no. i (2010): 42, 52; Amanda Trulock to Bronson Beardsley, January 30,1838; Amanda Trulock to father, August 27, 1841, both UCAA.
6. Three years after she left New England, the free black population of Fairfield County, Con- necticut, was no more than 2.5 percent of the total population. Amanda referred to the condition of free blacks in the North from time to time and that would plausibly be based on some previous first- hand observations. Bronson Beardsley must have expressed reservations about slavery because an undated letter he received from James Trulock has Trulock defending Christian slaveownership to his brother-in-law. Finally, many scholars have supported Garrison's observation that free states like Connecticut still contained deep currents of "virulent racism." Matthew Warshauer, Connecticut in the American Civil War: Slavery, Sacrifice, and Survival (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2012), 2-3; Amanda Trulock to Nichols Beardsley, March 21,1838, and James Trulock to Bron- son Beardsley, n.d., both UCAA; U.S. Census, 1840, Population Schedule, Fairfield County, Conn.
7. Amanda Trulock to Beardsley family, October 24,1837, U C A A . 8. Amanda Trulock to Beardsley family, Bronson Beardsley, and Marcia Beardsley, October 24,
1837, March 21 and June 5,1838, all UCAA; King-Hunter, Northern Woman, 13. 9. Amanda Trulock to Bronson Beardsley, January 30,1838; Amanda Trulock to mother, Janu-
ary 24,1842, both UCAA. 10. Amanda Trulock to mother, December 29,1844, February 22,1845, both UCAA.
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Amanda Trulock 69
11. Nineteenth-century settlers linked topography and climate directly to health, and migrants to Arkansas generally believed an acclimation period was imperative. See Conevery Bolton Valencius, The Health of the Country: How American Settlers Understood Themselves and Their Land (New York: Basic, 2002), 23; Donald P. McNeilly, The Old South Frontier: Cotton Plantations and the Formation of Arkansas Society, 1819-1861 (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2000), 61-67; Amanda Trulock to father, March 1845; Amanda Trulock to mother, September 3, 1845; Amanda Trulock to brother, June 14,1847, all U C A A .
12. As a slaveholding widow, Amanda was now a member of a group that was statistically more vulnerable to economic instability. Kirsten Wood, Masterful Women: Slaveholding Widows from the American Revolution through the Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 37; Amanda Trulock to father and mother, December 23,1849; Amanda Trulock to father, March 1850, both UCAA.
13. William Cantrell was thirty-seven years old and identified as a member of the Trulock house- hold that year and as a "farmer" by occupation. This was Bronson Beardsley's second trip to his sister's plantation; he had visited her in Georgia nine years earlier. Reuben was not described as either an "overseer" or "driver" in Amanda's correspondence, and the notion of a "black overseer" is problematic within the nomenclature of slave historiography. Nevertheless, there is sufficient evidence that a few slaves in the Old South sometimes had broad managerial powers similar to Reuben's. William L. Van Deburg, "The Slave Drivers of Arkansas: A New View from the Narra- tives," Arkansas Historical Quarterly 35, no. 3 (Autumn 1976): 231-45; William WiethofF, "Enslaved Africans' Rivalry with White Overseers in Plantation Culture: An Unconventional Interpretation," Journal of Black Studies 36, no. 3 (2006): 429-55; U.S. Census, 1850, Jefferson County, Ark.; Amanda Trulock to mother, March 5,1841, and Amanda Trulock to brother, February 4, 1857, both UCAA; Bronson Beardsley to father, mother, and sister, November 21,1850, February 12,1851, Beardsley and Trulock Family Letters, private collection of Burton Hatheway, Fairneld, Conn., cited in Malloy, "Health of Our Family," 93-94.
14. James Trulock used a white overseer for at least one year in Georgia (1839). Based on that, it would be plausible to conclude that Amanda had some personal knowledge of the physical coercion that was the norm in slavery. James sometimes wrote of being physically sore after arduous labor clearing some of his new land. This has to be considered uncommon behavior and is highly sug- gestive of James's unconventional management style. Six letters written by Reuben and Orren have survived. Amanda sometimes even received short dictations from Reuben, which she put into her letters. James Trulock to Polly Beardsley, August 2, 1846; Amanda Trulock to mother, March 18, 1839, June 30, 1848; Amanda Trulock to father, March 21, 1838, April 16, 1839, February 17, 1840; Amanda Trulock to sister, February 15, 1848; Amanda Trulock to brother, December 25, 1852, all UCAA; Bronson Beardsley to father, mother, and sister, February 12,1851, cited in Malloy, "Health of Our Family," 93-94.
15. Report of the General Superintendent ofFreedmen, Department of the Tennessee and State of Arkansas for 1864 (Memphis, Tenn., 1865), 74; James Leslie, "The Reuben and Orren Letters," Jefferson County Historical Quarterly 18, no. 4 (1990): 12-30; Amanda Trulock to sister, March 16, 1846, UCAA.
16. William K. Hutchinson and Samuel Williamson, "The Self-Sufficiency of the Antebellum South: Estimates of the Food Supply," Journal of Economic History 31, no. 3 (1971): 591-612; Amanda Trulock to sister, January 14,1853, January 5 and March 11,1854, all UCAA; U.S. Agricultural Census, 1850, Jefferson County, Ark., 52; U.S. Agricultural Census, 1860, Jefferson County, Ark., 4.
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/O G A R Y T. E D W A R D S
17. Reuben s exact management method over the field slaves is largely unknown. One unverifi-
able incident passed down in Trulock family lore suggests that Reuben used force and hit slaves
on the head with the end of a hoe. More likely is a primary account of his habit of commencing
daily labor earlier than most other planters. If so, then Reuben may have incentivized faster work
by offering an earlier quitting time when the day's tasks were accomplished. James W. Leslie, "The
Reuben and Orrin [sic] Letters: 1852-1855," Jefferson County Historical Quarterly 18, no. 4 (1990):
10-21; Trulock, "Family Memoir," 30; Amanda Trulock to sister, December 15,1853, Amanda Tru-
lock to father, March 7,1853, both UCAA.
18. Revealing the depth of her conviction on this issue, Amanda was out of useful house workers
at this time (primarily due to sickness) and was doing more of her own domestic work than usual.
She could have justified the purchase of a house worker, but she refrained. Amanda Trulock to
sister, November 18,1856, January 3,1857, Amanda Trulock to brother, February 4,1857, all UCAA.
19. Amanda had prior experience with this issue because James had sold and purchased some
enslaved people while they lived in Georgia and purchased others from Virginia after they moved
to Arkansas. She portrayed this as a financial necessity but expressed no obvious empathy for the
slaves' predicament. However, it is still plausible that she may have comprehended some of the
human trauma inflicted by the slave trade and did not wish to revisit it. Amanda Trulock to brother,
May 20,1845, Amanda Trulock to sister, April 6,1857, both UCAA.
20. Amanda once wrote of a Mr. Clements and his men, who were to construct the new gin
house, but there was an extensive delay before construction. It seems likely that she was referring
to them again when she later stated, "I must tell you that our gentlemen boarders have finished
and left, and that I have paid them in full by draft." A few lines later she spoke of Reuben's pleasure over the new gin house. Amanda Trulock to sister, May i, 1854, December 17, 1855, November 18,
1856, all U C A A .
21. James and Amanda traveled to and from Bridgeport at least twice from Georgia (1838 and
1842) and once from Arkansas (1847). None of Amanda's letters written after March 1858 until the
start of the Civil War have survived. But it is plausible to assume that she continued to visit her
children each summer.
22. Amanda Trulock to sister, May i, 1854, UCAA.
23. Upon her return in 1851 Amanda found that her older son had been deathly ill while she was
away. Caroline and Reuben conveyed a tale of personal frustration in getting the neighbors Dr. and
Mrs. Wright to come in time to attend to young Marshall. This suggests that the slaves were taking
care of the boys and were responsible for seeking outside white assistance, even though it proved
painfully slow in this instance. The incident also reveals Amanda's predisposition to believe her
slaves, even against the actions of whites, when she surmised that there was not "any doubt about
the children being badly treated." Amanda Trulock to one and all, October 1851; Amanda Trulock
to all at home, September 29,1857, both UCAA.
24. John C. Inscoe, ed., Selections from the Cotton Kingdom by Frederick Law Olmsted (New York:
Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014).
25. Amanda Trulock to one and all, November 12,1845, October 1851; Amanda Trulock to sister,
December 17,1855, all UCAA.
26. The Census does not explicitly state sources of income but suggests that the Beardsleys had
some financial benefit from Amanda's plantation and her slave property. In 1850 and 1870 Nich-
ols Beardsley had only $7,000 in real estate wealth, most likely his house and land in the town of
Bridgeport. But in 1860 he had $40,000 in personal income, most likely assets given by Amanda.
In 1870 Nichols no longer had any personal income, but Amanda, now home from Arkansas, had
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Amanda Trulock 71
$40,000. Likewise, in 1860, Amanda's sons living in Connecticut had $20,000 in real estate and $10,000 in personal property each, even though none of them were yet twenty-one. U.S. Cen- sus, 1850, Fairfield County, Conn., 2; U.S. Census, 1860, Fairfield County, Conn., 48; U.S. Census, 1870, Fairfield County, Conn., 116; Amanda Trulock to sister, December i, 1854, November 12,1857, Amanda Trulock to father, November 29,1857, all UCAA.
27. Amanda Trulock to sister, February 2,1853, November 18,1856, both U C A A . 28. J. Thornton Randolph, The Cabin and Parlor; or, Slaves and Masters (Philadelphia:
T. B. Peterson, 1852), 325. 29. Amanda Trulock to family, September 1863?; Victoria Trulock to mother, October 18,1863,
both UAFSC. 30. The Trulocks' successful participation in the cotton market is suggested by the fact that
Amanda sent $15,000 for her father to invest on behalf of her children in June 1864. Such income must have been "greenbacks" made from the recent legal trade of cotton in the occupied regions. Furthermore, it is plausible that the slaves had picked a large amount of cotton before emancipation was fully realized, and Nichols was left to gin whatever he could, with minimal assistance, through- out the following winter. Carl Moneyhon, "From Slave Labor to Free Labor: The Federal Plantation Experiment in Arkansas," Arkansas Historical Quarterly 53, no. 2 (Summer 1994): 137-60; Amanda Trulock to family, September 1863?, Amanda Trulock to son, March 7, 1864, Amanda Trulock to father, June 9,1864, all UAFSC.
31. Confederate Veteran 6, no. 9 (1898): 433; Amanda Trulock to all, August i, 1864, September 20, 1864, both UAFSC.
32. Amanda Trulock to son and daughter, July 10, 1864; Amanda Trulock to all, August i and September 20,1864; Amanda Trulock to son, October 27,1864, all UAFSC.
33. Freedmen s Bureau records confirm that Nichols had previously contracted the labor of four- teen freedmen by March 1864. Six men with the surname Trulock (Elbert, George, James, Moses, Phillip, and Thomas) were enlisted in the Fifty-Fourth U.S. Colored Infantry—a unit formed in Ar- kansas. Soldiers and Sailors Database, National Park Service, http://www.nps.gov/civilwar/soldiers -and-sailors-database.htm (accessed August 29, 2017); General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934, National Archives and Records Administration (hereafter N A R A ) , roll T288_479, Elbert Trulock; George E. Lankford, ed., Bearing Witness: Memories of Arkansas Slavery, Narratives from the 19305 WPA Collections (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2003), 178; Freedmen s Bureau Field Office Records, Arkansas, 1864-1872, Mi9oi, roll 20, Letters Sent, 1864-1866,1868,10, N A R A ; Report of the General Superintendent of Freedmen, 74; Amanda Trulock to daughter, December 7, 1863; Amanda Trulock to son and daughter, November 13,1864, both UAFSC.
34. Report of July i, 1864, Office of Superintendent of Freedmen, State of Arkansas, Department of Arkansas, RG 393, N A R A , cited in Moneyhon, "From Slave Labor to Free Labor," 147; Amanda Trulock to children, February 3,1865, UAFSC.
35. Bridgeport City Directory, 1891, 512; Amanda Trulock to children, June 18, 1865; Amanda Trulock to Major G. W. Davis, October 3,1866; Amanda Trulock to daughter, September 13,1867, all UAFSC.
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