One of the challenges of historical fiction is creating a story that reflects, yet uniquely redefines, the context of history. The American Daughters, Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s new novel, succeeds in capturing the oppression of slavery while offering a vibrant story of Black female empowerment that transcends time.
Set in New Orleans from 1851 to the Civil War, The American Daughters tells the story of Ady, an enslaved young woman. Ady and her mother, Sanite, are purchased by John du Marche, a wealthy businessman and politician, to maintain his townhouse in the city while he attends to business at Ascension, his family’s plantation. Early in the story, Ady and Sanite attempt to escape, but Sanite is captured and brought back to Ascension. Ady later finds her mother and remains on the plantation, working in du Marche’s house, enduring the abuse from du Marche’s wife. After Sanite’s death, Ady returns to the townhouse and, during du Marche’s prolonged absences, finds a job at an inn owned by Lenore, a free Black woman. Through her contact with Lenore’s friends, Ady discovers The Daughters, a circle of Black women who deftly spy on the activities of white landowners and slave traders. Through The Daughters, Ady discovers hidden pockets of empowerment in her community and the personal courage to define her life.
The tone of Ruffin’s novel, in some ways, reads like a history book. There is a formality to the language, an even, balanced flow to the storyline, and an almost analytical architecture to the prose. Several chapters open with artifacts — a map, a portion of a diary, an ad on a slave auction billboard. The textual structure pulls the reader into the past, but once there, the interaction with the characters is deeply personal and heartfelt.
Ruffin’s last book, the story collection The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You, displayed the writer’s literary chops at penetrating the psyche of his characters and instilling purpose into their otherwise dismal existence. He brings the same skill into The American Daughters. The author’s portrayal of Ady’s experience in enslavement is neither typified nor consistently oppressive. Ruffin shows the constant dehumanization and raw moments of cruelty and abuse. Yet Ady, often left alone in the townhouse, chooses not to run away. Though enslaved, she is able to roam, to go into town, to work without detection. She can read and write, carrying her intelligence into her restrained yet quietly defiant encounters with her oppressors. For Ady, freedom means “the ability to use one’s legs to carry oneself where one chose,” to be “self-possessed, and not a matter of purported ownership.” She hopes legal freedom will come in time but doesn’t wait for it.
Even Ady’s relationship with du Marche is complex. He is appallingly cruel yet feigns near-affection, insisting that Ady call him “father,” not “master.” He buys her dresses so she will look presentable when she accompanies him on errands in town. Though Ady holds him responsible for her mother’s death and is forced to submit to his advances, she does not overtly hate him, recognizing him for the wretched creature he has become as his rage against Black people consumes and weakens him. She knows his time of reckoning will come.
Language is important to the story. The characters adopt different names to signal different identities. “Ady” is the narrative voice, “Adebimpe” is her mother’s daughter, and “Antoinette du Marche” is the enslaved woman. Similarly, The Daughters each have two names, partly to conceal their identities from their enemies, but also as a way to define themselves in the secret world they have created. From Ady’s point of view, du March’s estate is never the “plantation” but the “slave camp known as a plantation.” Names are a means of control, a way to define oneself and refuse to be defined.
Some of the novel’s most intimate and powerful moments depict Ady’s relationship with the other Daughters. Their mission is extraordinary, and their actions are meticulously crafted and surgical. As Ady reflects, “She was astounded by these women. Their confidence and self-possession. Their vibrancy resonated within her. She felt joy, even, and for the first time decided she deserved to indulge in that.” They survive on determination and inner strength. “We have neither money nor the force of law on our side,” Lenore says. “Clever, I’m afraid, is all we have.” Yet there is also a quiet warmth among these women; even, occasionally, touches of humor. After seeing The Daughters identified on a wanted poster, Lenore comments, “An insult. They’re only offering fifteen thousand dollars for the lot of us.” To which Ady replies, “We could use that money.”
The American Daughters probes the meaning of enslavement. While not sparing any of slavery’s horrors, the novel also challenges the limitations of its oppression. Ady is not blind to her lack of freedom:
“She had never seen the papers with her own eyes, but she didn’t need to. In her time at his big house she surmised where he maintained ownership documents for all the people joined to him by leg weights. She knew that in the fine cherry-wood cabinet across from his bed was a ledger book inside which sat a leaf of paper covered in elegant handwriting and in between claims for cattle and milled grain was her name along with the age at which she had been acquired and the price of her body.”
Yet Ady does not let du Marche define her. “He wanted her to be present and to witness him in his acts. Her freedom was that she denied him this attention.”
The novel also blurs the lines between enslavement and freedom. Even free Black people were always at risk of having their homes and businesses destroyed or themselves or their families harmed. In Sanite’s words, after she and Ady tried to escape, “We could have kept going for the rest of our life knowing that any old white could bring us back. That ain’t freedom either.” Lenore and the other “Free Negroes” of New Orleans, their business surviving solely at the pleasure of white people, are economically little more free than their enslaved brothers and sisters. Even The Daughters, empowered in their defiance, acknowledge the tentativeness of their place in history. “The women were well aware that whatever the Daughters accomplished would be forgotten for all time. Ady knew that she, too, would be forgotten.”
The American Daughters is an important work. It transcends physical and mental oppression and shows how Ady and the other women take control of their lives. On the eve of the end of the Civil War, they do not wait for freedom to arrive. They have already defined freedom for themselves.
FICTION
The American Daughters
By Maurice Carlos Ruffin
One World
February 27, 2024
Southern Review of Books 