The Sheriff's Children

“The war, it is true, had robbed the county of the flower of its young manhood; but the burden of taxation, the doubt and uncertainty of the conflict, and the sting of ultimate defeat, had been borne by the people with an apathy that robbed misfortune of half its sharpness.”

This quote acknowledges the effects of the war on the citizens but characterizes them as so insensible that they barely feel these privations. This passage prefigures the later characterization of the mob and pre-empts much of the sympathy that the reader might feel for the underprivileged citizens of Branson County. Chesnutt does not allow their deprivation to be an apology for their violence and racism.

“I s’pose the n***** ‘lowed the Cap’n had some greenbacks,’ observed a third observer. ‘The Cap’n,’ said another, with an air of superior information, ‘has left two bairls of Confederate money, which ‘spected ‘ud be good some day er nuther.’ This statement gave rise to a discussion of the speculative value of Confederate money; but in a little while the conversation returned to the murder.”

This quote raises the question of economics within the narrative and time period, illustrating the uncertainty of the townspeople’s fate. In this sense, it also reflects the county’s questions around their worth in light of their wartime defeat and compromised social status.

“‘Well,’ said a round-shouldered farmer, who, in spite of his peaceable expression and faded grey eye, was known to have been one of the most daring followers of a rebel guerrilla chieftain, ‘what air yer gwine ter do about it? Ef you fellers air qwine ter set down an’ let a wuthless n***** kill the bes’ white man in Branson, an’ not say nuthin,’ I’ll move outen the caounty.”

The narrator states that this “speech [gives] tone and direction to the rest of the conversation” (134); it unified and galvanizes the townspeople, thus becoming the organizing principle around which the lynchers converge and rally. It reinforces a racist hierarchy between a “wuthless n*****” and the “bes’ white man in Branson.” The murder of the captain excites the “round-shouldered farmer,” disrupting his “peaceable expression” and reminding the others of his “daring” efforts in the war. This ignites a kind of in-town civil war, compelling the farmer to once again defend Confederate ideologies. Tom’s promised lynching will establish, at least for the town, an allegiance to the past.

“‘You never mind me, Polly,’ said her father reassuringly, as he gently unclasped her hands from his arm. ‘I’ll take care of myself and the prisoner, too. There ain’t a man in Branson County that would shoot me. Besides, I have faced fire too often to be scared away from my duty. You keep close in the house,’ he continued, ‘and if any one disturbs you just use the old horse-pistol in the top bureau drawer. It’s a little old-fashioned, but it did good work a few years ago.’”

This quote establishes the quality of the sheriff’s relationship with Polly, contrasting the “reassuring” way he addresses her with the dismissal of her worries. Polly’s feverish exclamations provide the sheriff an opportunity to assume the role of the heroic war veteran and protector. The sheriff’s treatment of his child Polly will become a counterpoint to his treatment of his other child Tom, as the story unfolds.

“Colonel or Sheriff Campbell, as he was indifferently called, as the military or civil title happened to be most important in the opinion of the person addressing him, had a high sense of responsibility attached to his office.”

The “indifference” here illustrates the lack of relative public distinction between the sheriff’s two roles. Although the sheriff differentiates them, espousing allegiance to his office, one can stand in for each other, both representing the upholding of unjust laws and social contracts.

“‘To get away, of course,’ said the prisoner, in a tone which caused the sheriff to looks at him more closely, and with an involuntary feeling of apprehension, if the man was not mad, he was in a state of mind akin to madness, and quite dangerous.”

Tom’s “madness” can be read in one of two ways: as a factual observation or as the only way the sheriff can understand a Black man who has stepped out of his role. As the sheriff had not expected any attempt at claiming power, he is caught unawares and is frightened by Tom’s lack of conformity.

“‘True,’ said the prisoner, ‘you saved my life, but for how long? When you came in, you said Court would sit next week. When the crowd went away they said I had not long to live. It is merely a choice of two ropes.’”

This quote establishes Tom’s intelligence and perceptive nature. He has observed both the townspeople’s vows as well as the sheriff’s timeline for court. In contrast to the sheriff’s romantic notions of saving Tom’s life, Tom understands the reality of his predicament and his lack of real choice.

“‘My father?’ replied the mulatto. ‘It were well enough for me to claim the relationship, but it comes with poor grace from you to ask anything by reason of it. What father’s duty have you ever performed for me? Did you give me your name, or even your protection? Other white men gave their colored sons freedom and money, and sent them to the free States. You sold me to the rice swamps.’”

Tom makes the distinction between a “father” as a care-giver and as a biological father only. He lays out what a responsible father could have done, even as an enslaver, calling the sheriff’s unconsciousness to task and forcing him to face his remorse within a new context. In this sense, Tom challenges the sheriff’s understanding of duty, foreshadowing his moral quandary later in the text.

“‘Life?’ said the prisoner, with a sarcastic laugh. ‘What kind of a life? You gave me your own blood, your own features—no man need look at us together twice to see that—and you gave me a black mother. Poor wretch! She died under the lash, because she had enough womanhood to call her soul her own. You gave me a white man’s spirit, and you made me a slave, and crushed it out.’”

Tom confronts the sheriff’s idea of life. While the sheriff praises himself for at least giving Tom life, Tom presents the sheriff’s creation of him as a crime, not a virtue. For Tom, the sheriff’s act is one of the utmost privilege and irresponsibility, sexually exploiting Tom’s mother and causing Tom to be born into slavery.

“‘I have been to school, and dreamed when I went that it would work some marvelous change in my condition. But what did I learn? I learned to feel that no degree of learning or wisdom will change the color of my skin and that I shall always wear what in my own country is a badge of degradation. When I think about it seriously I do not care particularly for such a life. It is the animal in me, not the man, that flees the gallows. I owe you nothing,’ he went on, ‘and expect nothing of you; and it would be no more than justice if I should avenge upon you my mother’s wrongs and my own. But still I hate to shoot you; I have never yet taken human life—for I did not kill the old captain. Will you promise to give no alarm and make no attempt to capture me until morning, if I do not shoot?’”

Tom distinguishes between the animalistic part of him that unyieldingly clings to his life, regardless of its dimensions, with the man who might surrender it if he could circumvent his instincts. Therefore, he juxtaposes his primitive parts with his “evolved” parts, noting also his restraint in capitulating to murderous intent. This acts in contrast to the racist stereotype of the “savage” Black person as well as the town’s automatic assumptions of this. It also lends weight to his suicide, suggesting Tom’s “conscious” parts finally won out, leading him to choose death over a life of pain.

“In the silent watches of the night, when he was alone with God, there came into his mind a flood of unaccustomed thoughts. An hour or two before, standing face to face with death, he had experienced a sensation similar to that which drowning men are said to feel—a kind of clarifying of the moral faculty, in which the veil of the flesh, with its obscuring passions and prejudices, is pushed aside for a moment, and all the acts of one’s life stand out, in the clear light of truth, in their correct proportions and relations—a state of mind in which one sees himself as God may be supposed to see him.”

The sheriff’s moral questions are finally seen within the context of spiritual belief. Observing himself within this context, the sheriff is able to “transcend” his flesh and understand the perspective of God. This mirrors the Romantic notion of seeing through normal life to become one with the divine. Although the sheriff experiences a religious awakening, it is the flawed human structures he cannot quite acknowledge and face.

“In the reaction following his rescue, this feeling had given place for a time to far different emotions. But now, in the silence of midnight, something of this clearness of spirit returned to the sheriff. He saw that he had owed some duty to this son of his—that neither law nor custom could destroy a responsibility inherent in the nature of mankind. He could not thus, in the eyes of God at least, shake off the consequences of his sin. Had he never sinned, this wayward spirit would never have come back from the vanished past to haunt him. As these thoughts came, his anger against the mulatto died away, and in its place there sprang up a great pity.”

This quote juxtaposes the sheriff’s initial feelings upon his rescue with the feelings of “pity” that come later. In this sense, the sheriff releases his egoic anger, the image of the jilted hero, and turns his attention to his wronged son. The sheriff finally recognizes his responsibility and duty as well as the ways he has violated the reigning natural laws of morality. He claims his “sin” and the resulting consequences.

“The sheriff recalled his own youth. He had inherited an honored name to keep untarnished; he had had a future to make; the picture of a fair young bride had beckoned him on to happiness. The poor wretch now stretched upon a pallet of straw between the brick walls of the jail had had none of these things—no name, no father, no mother—in the true meaning of motherhood—and until the past few years no possible future, and then one vague and shadowy in its outline, and dependent for form and substance upon the slow solution of a problem in which there were many unknown quantities.”

The sheriff finally acknowledges his privilege as well as a “vague” future dependent on social progress to answer the question of racism. In this he begins to acknowledge the structural barriers created by racism. The possibility of a “slow solution” is central to the story’s design as social activism as well as a point of contention between the sheriff and Tom.