The Known World
Even before the Emancipation Proclamation in 1865, many Negro slaves were being set free in the southern states. Some of them could read and write and were able to learn a trade. But all had to carry papers stating that he or she had been legally set free by the last owner. Most whites would accept the freed slaves, but a few attempted to confiscate these papers and sell the holders back into slavery.
William Robbins freed young Henry Townsend who had spent many years as a groom and shoemaker on Robbin's plantation. Henry was able to buy property, marry a freed black woman, and later buy slaves to work on his small plantation. But his father, also a freed slave, disowned Henry when he learned of this, on the grounds that blacks should never use other blacks as slaves.
But Henry's slaves did not protest, and after his death some time later, they continued to work loyally for his widow, Caldonia. Only Moses, the slave overseer of the plantation, couldn't accept being a black slave working for a freed black woman, especially since the two of them were having sex now and then.
The sheriff of Manchester County, Virginia, did his best to protect whites and blacks alike, but his night patrollers were not always so law-abiding. At that time, capturing a freed slave and selling him for a good price was not uncommon. Even a runaway slave when found might end up with an ear cut off or his Achilles tendon sliced to keep him hobbling.
Ironically, while some poorer whites felt free to sell or murder freed slaves, many wealthy plantation owners were using black women as their mistresses. William Robbins was more in love with the black woman, who bore two of his children, than he was with his white wife and daughter. His black son would one day marry Caldonia.
Even though The Known World is overloaded with characters, there are no main ones. It is more a history of whites and blacks just prior to the Civil War who had to decide on the values and risks of being free, and the values and risks of sex between whites and blacks.
The Known World is filled with many tragedies, but the unusual ending restores a reader's faith in racial freedom. It was published in 2003 and was Edward P. Jones's first novel.