Imagine That
Little we know, where we come from.
Imagine an evening in the life of my ancestor, Mr. Harrigan
of South Carolina, antebellum legislator. In the lounge
of the Congaree Hotel, corner of Main and Lady, almost midnight,
he drinks bourbon with Mr. Colrain, also a legislator
from the low county. Mr. H. wears a velvet waistcoat,
silk cravat, Mr. C. a brocade one and a silk cravat.
There they sit, discussing imported brandy.
From his plantation south of Charleston,
Mr. H. rides over to Columbia in an upholstered carriage
with French draft horses. Mr. C. comes from an island plantation
east of the city. Two enslaved men travel along to tend their needs.
Words like honor, right, God fly between them like wild birds
past a fetid marsh. Together they own one-hundred-seventy people.
Pass laws to affirm their hold on these men, women and children.
Their talk moves from brandy to good cigars.
Mr. C. complains: his wife bought a trunk of English china.
Mr. H. asks if he knows a good pony for sale.
Nelia, his nine-year-old, his baby, jealous over her sister’s
lavish wedding. It pains him. One speaks of news from the North —
treacherous nonsense. The other agrees: some people
want to make trouble. Not to worry, we shall prevail.
Little we know, where we are going.
Neither suspects disaster licks their heels.
In fifteen years the hotel and State House will be ashes.
Mr. H. will lose a forearm, Mr. C will die of war wounds
that won’t heal. Both will lose everything but land.
Men, women, and children who feed them, repair their porches,
outbuildings and stables, harvest the rice, are freed
to scatter north or struggle at home for food and shelter.
Mr. H. enjoys the bourbon, no inkling Union troops
will torch his house. His one sister will perish
as she returns to salvage jewelry.
I did not imagine the last of these details.
What we can’t imagine exists, without my life or yours.
One hundred-fifty-eight years later in California, a state that joined
the union the week these men drink bourbon, my own wedding
takes place. Great-great-granddaughter of Mr. H., I married
a great-great-grandaughter of Mr. C., our wedding just made legal.
Imagine that, Mr. Harrigan and Mr. Colrain.
My wife’s family, German-Irish who settled in Buffalo, married
their kind. Except one son, stationed south for the first world war
met a woman named Colrain, brought her to New York state.
Grandfather and grandmother to my wife.
My family, early settlers in the Carolinas and Georgia,
climbed from poverty to wealth. Back to poverty.
One great-great was named Harrigan.
I learned about Mr. Harrigan, tracked his slaveholding.
We found Mr. Colrain when my wife’s mother sent old papers
no one read any more. By chance we discovered
their joint tenure in the South Carolina legislature.
Wizardry of time and place brought us together on a far coast.
Left us with impossible questions. Rooted in their day,
who would we marry? Would we have tolerated slavery?
Perhaps brandy loosened our forebears’ tongues.
A little worry there after all, perhaps a fitful smile
over their way of life, some slight trouble about what they
lived with, people they owned, children they sired.
Hard to imagine anxious thoughts never occupied them,
haunted their sleep. Or had they callused in the region
of the heart? Split their minds in two, felt clean.
Threads of connection. If we can see them, can we
grasp the meaning? Threads to follow, linkages we didn’t know.
Where are the descendants of people our families owned?
Are they around us, related to us? Imagine that.
What other way to glimpse what couples and uncouples,
what branches burgeon beyond our sight?