Yeah, I’ll admit it. I am a descendant of slave owners.
I mean, it’s not something I’m proud of but, seeing as it’s a true fact, I feel it’s worth mentioning. We’re 150 years post-Emancipation, and a know a lot of folks would prefer not to acknowledge something as evil and terrible as slavery as part of their personal story. “That happened to other people, long ago, not to me.” I can understand that. Sometimes when I bring up in conversation that I had ancestors who owned human beings like today we own mobile phones, I can tell by the shocked expressions on people’s faces that they wish I had quietly omitted that my family were active participants in our nation’s darkest chapter.
Because of how emotional and political phrases like “Critical Race Theory” and “Black Lives Matter” and “White Privilege” have become in the last several years, it’s difficult to talk about my family’s story without it being construed as some kind of case study on “Wherefore America” or “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things.”
As a result, maybe a lot of people would prefer I not bring it up at all. But I think it needs to be discussed—not so it can be picked apart and held up as some kind of esoteric example, but because Anne was a real person and her story deserves to be told. It’s likely that members of my immediate family and I are the only ones who even know about her today.
Before I can tell you about Anne, we must begin with the Stewarts, formerly of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. George Stewart, Jr, owned a plantation and a quantity of enslaved persons in that fair city, and has the honor of being the first member of his family to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (By the way, before I continue I should mention that there are a lot of Georges in this story. Brace yourself.)
George Jr. was something of a contradiction. He was obviously spiritual enough to recognize the truth of the Gospel when he heard it, but at the same time, he was straight-up racist. For a man in of his place and time – the slaveholding South – he was nothing out of the common way, although it is shocking to modern sensibilities. To quote from the written record, he “refused to eat any food prepared by black hands.” Nice, right?
Even though enslaved women did most of the household chores on the Stewarts’ estate, George’s hangups meant most of the cooking had to be done by his wife, Ruthinda. Except Ruthinda was…well…I’ll put it this way: Remember Scarlett O’Hara as portrayed by Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind? Imagine her just a little more dumb, a tad more histrionic, and a lot less personally responsible. Congratulations, you have met Ruthinda Stewart.
When I read about what a piece of work Ruthinda was, I have to remind myself that not all her weaknesses were her own fault. She married George when she was a young teenager—only fifteen!—and had zero opportunities for education. She was very much a product of her times and was accustomed to doing very little, apart from birthing children (by 1841 she had nine, and no, she wasn’t done yet) while allowing her husband to make all the meaningful decisions and handle every aspect of their finances.
Except, from what I understand, she do much around the house, either. She left that to her oldest child, Cynthia.
Cynthia, in contrast to her mom, spunky. As a teenager she used to ride on horseback for fifty miles just to go to a quilting bee.
Let me paint a picture of that for you: a young woman, dark-haired, with skin the color of milk, striding with purpose to the stables, head held high, for her mission is of the utmost importance. She wears skirts, but don’t let that fool you. She is no wilting flower.
“I must make haste!” She leaps into the saddle as though Satan himself were at her heels. The wind streams through her hair, she moves as though she and the horse were one.
“What news?” they ask of her as she gallops past. “What disaster are you fleeing?”
She meets their eyes and they quail from the sternness of her gaze. They know this is no mere girl. This is a woman who has faced greater horrors than they could possible imagine. “Tonight there is a quilting bee in Randolf, and by all the powers of Heaven, I intend to be there.” She spurs her horse onward with a “Yah!” The horse rears with a powerful “Neigh!” and together horse and rider fly into the rising sun. Onlookers gaze after her, feeling strangely bereft. She tamed that wild horse, but who would ever tame her?
She did pretty much everything with that kind of intensity. I think the strength of her character dictated that she had to, considering she hadn’t been allowed to attend school. She was the oldest child, and being a girl her job was to stay at home and be of help to her perpetually-expecting mother, make her father’s meals so he could be spared the indignity of eating food made by the enslaved. She makes particular mention of her lack of education in the page-long personal history she wrote in her twilight years, which indicates it was a point of sadness for her.
I imagine her as a young girl, probably nine or ten, sobbing on her bed as though her heart would break. A voice, soft and tender, whispers in her ear – “Miss Cynthia, tell me your sorrows.”
Cynthia sits up, scrubs the tears from her eyes, and sees Anne’s beloved, dark face. Cynthia can barely form complete sentences, but she manages to say, “Mama and Papa say…say I’m not to go to school like James….because I’m a girl…and…I just….[incoherent sobbing].”
Cynthia’s comforter takes her in her arms, and rocks her as though she were a very small child. Slowly, Cynthia’s sobs quiet into breathless whimpers.
“There, there, now, Miss Cynthia,” says Anne. Cynthia knew it would be Anne, and not her mother or father, who came to her to soothe her troubled soul. You could always count on her to know exactly what to say to mend a broken heart. She had a measure of emotional intelligence that far outstripped mere kindness.
“It’s not fair,” Cynthia mourns.
Anne hears Cynthia’s hiccuping sobs and is transported back to That Day, the last time she cried like this. When she was Cynthia’s age, her thoughts were consumed with everpresent worries over her future. It was never a question of if, but when, she would be sold away from her family, when she was sold away from her mother, bequeathed to her enslaver’s son like an heirloom necklace. Her mother had tried to be stoic – everyone knew this day would come – but when the moment came no one was able to stop the tears. Even now, Anne’s arms ache with physical pain, so deep is her longing to hold her own mother, her own siblings.
Cynthia whimpers, over and over, “Not fair, not fair,” and Anne remembers the girl she was, clutching her mother’s skirts for what she knew was the last time, crying, “Not fair, not fair.”
Of course, Anne can’t tell any of this to Cynthia. So instead Anne says only, “No, Miss Cynthia, I don’t suppose it is.”
This scene isn’t recorded in any book, but I’m absolutely certain it took place, in some way or another. Anne would have stayed with Cynthia all afternoon, until the poor child fell asleep from exhaustion, murmuring in her ear the same things Anne heard from her own mother on that last day; words of courage, entreating her to have faith in the Almighty – for does not He even mark the sparrows that fall?
Anne had been with the family for ages. Sometime in the 1830s, George’s father (also named George, but he’s not important to this part of the story) left Anne to George Jr. in his will. We estimate that she would have been about twelve or so at that time. Records on enslaved men and women were spotty back then, so we’re not entirely sure of her age. We do know that Anne lived and served in the Stewart house, and that she was regarded as “part of the family.”
In my imagination I picture Anne dressed in the manner of Harriet Tubman, except perhaps just a little more stylish. In my mind’s eye Anne looks like a girl I knew in high school, with wide, high cheekbones, wide eyes darker than midnight, her full mouth upturned in a perpetual half-smile.
Was she literally part of the family, or just regarded as such because of her long tenure with them? There’s no way of knowing for sure, but we do know that it was common the pre-Civil War era for so-called “house slaves” to be the children of white slaveowners. I don’t like to think she was George Jr.’s daughter, but you have to admit it’s within the realm of possibility. She could have also been his half-sister, or some kind of niece or cousin. As I said, we have no way of knowing.
She spurned men and promised a female friend (who later died) that they would neither of them wed unless it was to the same man (that’s a story for another day, but holy cow it’s a good one). She was the nineteenth-century version of “spiritual but not religious” and she eschewed all organized religion right up until her father came home with the message that the true church of Christ was on the earth once more.
“Thank God,” she replied. She was baptized along with her parents and younger brother James (who was not as cool as Cynthia) almost immediately, in May 1841.
I love Cynthia. And even though she died long before I was born, she’s practically my best friend.
Unfortunately, things changed for the Stewarts when they joined the Mormon Church. Where once George Jr. was respected in his community, now his friends and neighbors shunned and persecuted him, refused to do business with him. It would have been a simple matter at that point for George to recant of his heresy, but he wouldn’t do it. So the neighbors did what any good, upstanding Christians would do. Wanting to strike the proper balance between diplomacy and medieval justice, they poisoned the well on the Stewarts’ plantation. That was when the Stewarts knew they had been beaten. George sold his plantation for way below market value, as no one would give them a fair price for their land. They also sold most of the enslaved workers—except for Anne. It all comes back to Anne. They would never sell Anne, not for anything.
When the Stewarts sold their plantation, they struck out for Missouri, ostensibly to join with the body of the Saints, and Anne went west with them. And that’s when everything when wrong.
When they arrived, the family learned that the Saints were no longer in Missouri, apart from some apostate members. They’d have to travel northeast to Nauvoo. And then George died in 1845, leaving behind Ruthinda, plus nine living children and another one on the way. Then, just as they were figuring out their next steps and to add insult to injury, the Stewarts learned of the death of Joseph Smith and were no longer sure if the Mormon Church was even still A Thing.
Let’s pause for just a second and discuss George Jr. for a moment. As repugnant as we moderns would consider George’s personal views regarding people of color, there is plenty to admire about him. It would have been easy for him to renounce Mormonism—he could have lived a much less difficult life and, likely, he would have lived quite a lot longer, too. Is it possible to admire him for his enthusiasm for the Gospel while still accepting his flaws? Was he an angel? or a slave-dealing devil?
Can a person be both?
Whatever the answer to those philosophical questions, they are irrelevant or tangential at best, because for the most part, everything that has happened in the story up to this point is boring backstory. It’s not until after George Jr. dies that things get really interesting. And I mean “interesting” euphemistically. It’s pretty terrible.
After George died, Ruthinda took over. Sort of. Remember, she wasn’t accustomed to doing anything herself, especially nothing that had to do with making decisions. She had a quantity of cash in gold and silver left over from the sale of their Alabama plantation. Not knowing what else to do with it, she kept it in a chest under her bed.
Ruthinda was of the opinion that what the family needed most was a Man Who Would Tell Them What To Do, so she encouraged Cynthia to find one, and double-quick, to which Cynthia crossed her arms and said, “I have made an oath with my deceased childhood friend to spurn all men,” which was her way of telling her mother where she could go.
I really should tell that part of the story with the dead friend someday. It has ghosts in it.
The message I’m trying to convey here is that Cynthia had it together. Lack of education notwithstanding, she was no idiot. She was the glue that held her family together. She had to be, because her mother Ruthinda was too busy weeping into her handkerchief, sobbing about how hard life was as Cynthia and Anne did all the actual work.
It was at this moment that two men entered Cynthia’s life, each intent on making Cynthia his bride.
First, Bachelor #1, is known to history only as Mr. Anderson. He was a smooth talker, and was Ruthinda’s preferred choice for her daughter. I envision him wearing all black, with slicked-back hair and a twisty mustache (even though, strictly speaking, this was not the fashion in the 1840s). In my mind’s eye, he walked with a slight stoop, had a habit of wringing his clammy hands, and had a sniveling laugh. He professed to be a member of the Church, so Ruthinda pushed for this option as hard as she could.
I envision it like this:
“Miss Cynthia,” Mr. Anderson says, his breathless laugh sandpaper in Cynthia’s ears, “your dear Mama said I might take you driving. The weather is so very fine today; the only thing that would make it more beautiful is if you would grace the park with your beauty.”
“Thank you, Mr. Anderson,” Cynthia replies with grace. “But I would really rather not.”
His face darkens with anger. He adjusts the lapels of his expensive black suit and picks a piece of lint from his expensive black hat. “A pretty girl in your situation can’t afford to be so choosy. Your papa’s dead and buried, and there’s no one to look after you. Just think of your poor Mama, with nine children, and another one the way.” He leers at her. “You need a husband, and I intend to be it.”
Well, two can play that game. Cynthia places her hands on her hips and stares him down. “You think you can sway me with your fancy words and dark threats? I’ve faced down worse than you traveling to a quilting bee. I don’t want you, Mr. Anderson. Pray do not molest me with your company further, Sirrah.”
It was too late for Mr. Anderson anyway because, by that time, Cynthia had already met someone else.
Bachelor #2 is that paragon of family folklore, George Washington Hill. (Yes, also named George. I told you there are a lot of Georges in this story. Let’s call him George H. to keep him straight.) He would go on to become a famed bear-hunter, pioneer linguist, and he even once saved the life of Parley P. Pratt. But to Cynthia he was just the guy down the street, albeit a very tall and handsome one. And broad-shouldered. With a strong jaw, too. Plus, George H. had the benefit of not being a complete and total jerkface.
Cynthia looked at him and thought, “I suppose my deceased childhood friend could forgive me if I suspended my promise to marry a guy like that.”
There was one little issue—George H. was not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“I don’t think you really want to marry a Mormon,” Cynthia said, not flinching and telling it like it was.
To which George H. replied, “Seeing as I am set on marrying you, I am pretty extra-sure that I do.”
It’s not recorded if Anne had an opinion either way, but I like to think of her as being solidly team George H. She sees our hero step boldly into the parlor, striking a noble pose, and beholds the maidenly blush of Cynthia – who is not in the habit of blushing – and says to herself, “I ship it.”
Cynthia gave George H. a copy of Parley P. Pratt’s Voice of Warning, to let him know exactly what he was getting himself into. This book was the catalyst for George H.’s immediate conversion but didn’t want to tell Cynthia so—he didn’t want her to think he was joining up to manipulate her into marrying him or anything. He wasn’t baptized until over a year after their wedding.
Because he wasn’t officially a member of the Church, Ruthinda looked down her nose at him a little. The written records we have imply that Ruthinda’s blessing upon this union was contingent upon George’s promise to take Cynthia to join the rest of the Saints.
As for Mr. Anderson, he was not done with the Stewarts yet. He, I will quote from the written historical accounts, “decided that if he couldn’t have the ‘girl’ he would take the ‘gold’”; that is, that money under Ruthinda’s bed. Somehow, he had learned about all that glorious money. We don’t know how much it was, but if it was enough to fill a chest under the bed, it was probably a pretty decent sum.
Mr. Anderson came to Ruthinda with sly promises at a time neither Cynthia or Anne were around. He wouldn’t want them to thwart his plan by speaking plain, logical sense to Ruthinda.
I can imagine all the things he said to her, his pleading hands clasping hers, gazing into her eyes with false filial devotion.
“Miz Stewart,” he says, his voice coated with honey and oil. “Do let me take the gold for you. I will most assuredly invest it on your behalf with a well-known firm. I will take care of everything. Don’t you have enough burdens with so many children, and one born just after the death of your poor husband?”
Ruthinda grabs her lacey handkerchief and sobs into it a little, her eyes squeezed shut. She nods, for surely Mr. Anderson knows her grief.
Mr Anderson presses further. “Do you not, Miz Stewart, deserve someone to step in and relieve you of your worries? What do you know about money, after all? Of course there are no hard feelings about Miz Cynthia. Being a good Christian man, I just wanted to help where help is needed.
See, the thing about Ruthinda is that her life was a train wreck. Every time it came for her to make a decision on her own, she did exactly the worst possible thing, and anyone with half a brain could see the negative consequences coming from miles away.
So really, giving Mr. Anderson the money was entirely consistent with her character. Then she made sure not to do anything really foolish, like tell Cynthia what she had done.
Not long after George H. and Cynthia married, the newlyweds came to bid good-bye to Ruthinda and her brothers and sisters.
“And just where do you think you’re going?” Ruthinda demanded. Sometimes I picture this scene with Ruthinda holding a cooking spoon in her hand, and she waves it menacingly at George H. as she censures him. This is, of course, ridiculous, because she would never have cooked, not with Anne still around.
George blinked. “I’m…I’m going to take Cynthia to be with the rest of the Mormons,” he replied, as if to say, using a modern colloquialism, “Duh.”
“Well, you’re not going without me,” Ruthinda insisted.
She insisted that George Hill help her outfit her family to travel west. Step one was, of course, to get that money out of the bank. Where Ruthinda discovered quickly that Mr. Anderson had never deposited it in the bank.
Here is the conversation I imagine Cynthia had with her mother at that moment:
Cynthia sits with her elbows on the table, rubbing her temples, the very picture of exasperation. “Mama, why? I refused Mr. Anderson’s suit for a very good reason.”
Ruthinda sniffs with indignation. “You refused him because he wasn’t as good-looking as Mr. Hill.”
Anne, I am sure, muttered under her breath, “You don’t have to try very hard to be better-looking than that revolting son-of-a–”
Cynthia quickly responds, “I refused him because he was gross and stupid and mean and entitled. So there.”
“Well, George Hill promised he’d take us west, so there.”
George H, not knowing how to gracefully shake off his in-laws, brought them along. Even though he discovered that Cynthia’s younger brothers (James, if you recall, and George Rufus—yes, another George) were somewhat lacking in life skills like hitching up a wagon. And furthermore, they were not in any hurry to acquire said skills, not when George H. was around to do the heavy lifting.
“How are any of you still alive?” George H. probably asked at that point, to which I am sure Cynthia and Anne replied, “Sir, you have no idea.”
It is a tribute to George H. that even in these hair-tearing-out circumstances he managed to get his wife and her insane family, plus the Angelic and long-suffering Anne, as far as Winter Quarters, Nebraska.
And there they were stuck.
Things were not rosy in Winter Quarters. Cynthia delivered a baby on their way to Nebraska (Is it any surprise that they named him George?), and developed scurvy during the winter. Her suffering greatly affected George H., who confessed that he cried himself to sleep every night, so terribly downcast that he wasn’t able to do anything to alleviate her illness. He was determined to get his wife and child out of that situation as quickly as possible.
It is written that, at this stage of their journey, Anne was “dissatisfied.” And wouldn’t you be? I am 100% certain that there is not a soul who lived through the winter of ‘46-’47 in Winter Quarters who was thrilled with their life situation. This is probably a nice way of saying she let people know that she thought their circumstances were both stupid and also Ruthinda’s fault.
In response to another one of Ruthinda’s weep-into-the-handkerchief episodes, I picture Anne responding with her hands on her hips, eyes flashing, saying the following. I have translated it into twenty-first Century vernacular for your benefit:
“We’re destitute, all of us have bleeding gums and loose teeth. This is not a sustainable model. At least in Missouri we weren’t starving.”
Ruthinda wrings out her handkerchief again and makes sad puppy noises into it, but Anne is unmoved.
“I have put up with your drama for very nearly 20 years, lady, and I have about had it. Maybe you should try doing actual cooking for once. Or parenting that doesn’t involve emotional manipulation. I say again: we should go back to civilization.”
However, Ruthinda & Co. weren’t going anywhere, to Missouri or Zion or anywhere else, because they had zero resources.
In April 1847, George H. had an opportunity to join Brother Brigham’s wagon train and he took it. Strictly speaking ladyfolk and children weren’t invited on this trip, but by golly George H. was going to invite Cynthia and Baby George along anyway. Once again he loaded up his family, only to have his mother-in-law Ruthinda run out to him at the very last moment and demand that he take her along, too.
Cynthia, even weak from scurvy, had the energy to roll her eyes and place her face in her hands. “Oh my gosh, mother, I cannot even, I am literally dying.”
“I’ve done everything you’ve asked me to,” George H. would have pointed out. “I brought you into company with the Saints. And James is fully eighteen, now—perhaps this would be a good opportunity for him to man up and take care of his family?”
But James and Ruthinda both refused. In what must have been the biggest guilt-trip of the nineteenth century, Ruthinda reminded George of his promise, that he would take them to Zion. She probably did the weeping-into-the-handkerchief thing again.
After saying what I am sure was the 1840s equivalent of “Holy freak you have got to be kidding me, lady,” George H. relented, unpacked the wagons, and set about trying to figure out the logistics of taking Ruthinda and her entourage, including Anne, to Zion.
Of course Anne would come, Anne’s dissatisfaction notwithstanding. She was, after all, part of the family.
The obvious problem was that the Stewarts had no money, insufficient transportation, no provisions, and no way to get any of these things. If only that silver-tongued devil, Mr. Anderson, hadn’t run off with the Stewarts’ gold!
This is where the story takes its darkest turn. Because there was, actually, one way to get what they needed to go west.
Have you figured it out yet?
I imagine Ruthinda pacing the floor of that tiny cabin, wracking her brains in desperation as her children huddle in the corners. There must be a way….some way….there just has to be…And then her eyes rest upon Anne—dear, beloved Anne, so kind-hearted, always faithful, adored by the family. Anne, who at twenty-seven, was still strong and capable.
Ruthinda, being a product of her time, heard a faint, cha-ching in her head.
Originally, Ruthinda wanted James and George Rufus to do this dirty job, but they refused. But George H…. Ruthinda knew how to manipulate him but good.
Ruthinda took Anne to George H., placed her hand in his, and commanded him to take her back to Missouri and sell her. Ruthinda then turned around, went back into the cabin, and closed the door without looking back.
Anne was sold to a “Captain Whitehead” for a wagon, two yoke of oxen, and fifty dollars in cash.
Other accounts of this event state to Anne’s “dissatisfaction” and claim that she wanted to go back to Missouri. This is quite obviously crap. What human being wants to be sold like a cow?
Ruthinda later told her granddaughter, who was the one to write down the story, that she had “no intention of letting her feelings get in the way of her better judgment.”
What happened to everyone in the end:
- George Hill and Company (including the in-laws) left Winter Quarters in June and arrived safely in Salt Lake Valley.
- George became instrumental in the conversion of the indigenous population to Mormonism, and served as a linguist, ambassador, and a church patriarch.
- Cynthia stayed intense and spunky to the end of her days. She and George shared a romance that will be sung of by poets for all time (but that’s another story).
- Ruthinda Stewart lived to enjoy the company of her many grandchildren and died quietly in her sleep.
- Anne….is a blank. We have no idea what happened to her after Captain Whitehead took her away.
You could make a case for White Privilege here: The white Stewarts made it to Utah, whereas Anne’s ultimate end is unknown. I’ve delved into what records I can find, but they just did not keep good records on enslaved persons—no birth certificates or death certificates, that kind of thing. I don’t even know if she was still alive for the 1865 Emancipation.
I find myself worrying about this a lot. Was Anne literally part of their family? Did she ever have children of her own? Did she have children of her own left behind in Alabama? Do I have Black relatives somewhere? Do they know anything about this part of their story?
My family received a great many blessings by virtue of coming to Utah. But it was at the expense of Anne and we need to know and appreciate the weight of that.
In retelling this story, there’s a desire to assign blame, but who would you say is at fault? Mr. Anderson for stealing all that money in the first place? Ruthinda for being so empty-headed and manipulative? Was it George Stewart’s fault for owning slaves in the first place? George Hill’s fault for allowing himself to go along with his mother-in-law’s demands? Or is it maybe no one person’s fault and all these people were merely playing out a difficult situation with the only tools they had?
Ruthinda’s sons, if you’ll remember, had refused to sell Anne. You could point to their personal deficiencies and claim they just didn’t want to do difficult things, but I think it’s more likely that they knew selling Anne was absolutely contemptible and wanted no part of it. What did Cynthia said to her mother when she discovered her duplicity?
Angry tears prick Cynthia’s eyes and course down her cheeks. She still doesn’t have the strength to stand for long periods of time, or yell or scream and stamp her feet, like she wants to. It’s not only Ruthinda’s betrayal of Anne that has her so worked up. It’s the fact that Ruthinda didn’t have the guts to do it herself, and roped in Cynthia’s own husband to do her dirty work.
Ruthinda can see Cynthia has an opinion on the matter but tries to head her off, saying, “Don’t blame me, Cynthia, dear. It’s that devil, Mr. Anderson, and his silver tongue, in league with Satan himself.”
But this just makes Cynthia even madder. “Mama,” she says, shaking with rage and anger and hurt, “is Mr. Anderson the Devil, or is it you?”
I believe Ruthinda felt the burden of that betrayal for the remainder of her life. You only say things like, “I couldn’t let my feelings get in the way…” when you are unable to sleep at night, and you find yourself desperate to find an excuse—any excuse—that will somehow absolve you of your biggest sin.
I imagine Ruthinda as an old, old woman, telling her grandchildren about her life, confiding to them in the quietest of whispers, “Mr. Anderson was a silver-tongued devil. But, Heaven help me, so was I.”
EC Buck is a fifth-generation Latter-day Saint. After hearing all her life about the horrors of Utah Culture and Utah Mormons, she moved to Provo and became one. This is her third short story based on her family history. She also writes ridiculous mystery horror paranormal romance on Kindle Vella under the name Fanny McBride. Follow EC on twitter @BethBuckEditor, Instagram @bethbuckauthor, or her blog, bethbuckauthor.wordpress.com.
