1824: The Arkansas War

CHAPTER 31

New Antrim, Arkansas

That night, the Women's Council threw a ball for the soldiers of Arkansas. It was specifically intended for the 2nd and 3rd Infantry Regiments and the 3rd Artillery Battalion, who would be marching out of New Antrim on the morrow to meet the invading U.S. Army coming up the Arkansas. But the women weren't being particularly finicky about the matter. As long as a man was wearing a uniform of the Arkansas Army-or that of one of the other chiefdoms, of which there were a handful present-he'd be allowed into the festivities.

Winfield Scott and William Cullen Bryant were granted an exception, being distinguished visitors vouched for by the Laird himself. But the three old black women guarding the entrance to the Wolfe Tone Hotel gave them no friendly looks as they were passed through. Nothing personal, just a matter of principle.

Once they got past the fearsome trio, Scott chuckled. "Amazing to see such devotion to the classics, wouldn't you say, William? Given that-I'd wager a year's income-not one of them can read."

Bryant gave him a quizzical look.

Scott waved his hand expansively. They were now halfway into the great foyer, heading for the still larger central dining area that doubled as the ballroom. The foyer was packed with people, and from the sounds coming through the double doors, the ballroom was more crowded still.

"The three-headed Cerberus at the door-and Lysistrata here, right before your eyes. Upsidedown, of course, the way most things are in Arkansas. I predict a wave of births nine months from now."

Bryant examined a group nearby. Five young soldiers-four of them black, one white-were exchanging repartee with six young black women. The uniforms of the young men were matched by what came very close to uniforms on the part of the girls. "Ballroom gowns," technically, but in addition to being very simply and plainly made, they were all the same color. White, with a bit of blue trim here and there. Bryant was pretty sure they'd been mass-produced for the occasion by one of the same clothing companies that made the uniforms.

Those were private enterprises, technically. But Bryant had already come to realize that for Arkansans-especially black Arkansans-the distinction between private enterprise and government was much fuzzier than it was in the United States. Chief Driscol and his political subordinates did not meddle with the ownership of enterprises, to be sure. But they did expect the businesses to be cooperative with the chiefdom's policies-and they had the Bank of Arkansas to enforce their desires, if nothing else.

True, Driscol and Crowell's bank was also supposed to be private. But in practice it served Arkansas in the capacity of a state bank-even more so, really, than the Second Bank of the United States.

There was a certain irony there. Patrick Driscol, in terms of his political ideology, was as ferocious a democrat as any in the Republican Party in the United States. But the American Party was and had been from its inception heavily influenced by the aristocratic attitudes of men like its founder, Thomas Jefferson-not to mention its current most extreme partisan, John Randolph. For such men, government was always the great threat to their personal liberties, so they emphasized its iniquities. For a man like Driscol, and for those who followed him, the government-so long as it was their own-served as both a shield and a support.

The merits of either view could be argued in the abstract. But in the end, Bryant had concluded it was simply the different perspectives of wealthy slave-owners versus poor freedmen. The methods used by Driscol and his people worked in Arkansas-worked quite well, in fact-because the mostly black businessmen of the chiefdom saw nothing peculiar or unreasonable about them.

Nor, for that matter, did the Cherokees or Creeks. Nor would the newly arrived Choctaws. The southern Indian nations had their own customs and traditions, which harmonized far more closely with Arkansan practice than they ever had with that of Americans. The whole of the Confederacy, as it had emerged since its foundation in 1819, was a hybrid society-and nowhere more so than in Arkansas.

While ruminating, Bryant had continued to observe the group of young people standing by the entrance to the ballroom, waiting for enough space to be cleared to allow them to enter.

Two of the girls were obviously mulattos, or perhaps a quadroon in the case of one. The lighter-skinned of the two was very pretty, as was one of the negresses. All six of the girls, however, shared the general attractiveness of lively young women, regardless of appearance. And all of them had very bright eyes.

So did the young men. Boys, almost. Not one of them-or one of the girls-looked to be older than twenty.

Bryant found it all somewhat unsettling. His upbringing led him to disapprove of Arkansan customs when it came to sex. He wouldn't go so far as to use the term "licentious," himself, but he wouldn't strenuously object to it, either, if used by someone else. When it came to relations between the sexes, Arkansan youth behaved in a manner that was quite scandalous by American standards, especially those of New England. Still worse were the lax and tolerant attitudes of their elders.

But:

Another hybrid, he supposed. The black people who had poured into Arkansas over the past few years had come from shattered communities that had never, even in the best of times, enjoyed much in the way of social cohesion. So, already predisposed toward it anyway, they'd come to adopt and modify many of the cultural traditions of their Cherokee neighbors, if not some of the extreme customs of the Creeks. Just the year before, for instance, the chiefdom had passed a law allowing for matrilineal descent if a family chose to exercise that alternative. Whether they did or not, women were under no restrictions concerning property, and in the event of divorce they were entitled to keep whatever they'd brought into the marriage as well as half of whatever had been acquired since.

Bryant did not really approve, especially since he knew of several New England women who were already expressing an unhealthy interest in Arkansan custom. Giving such unnatural latitude to women, he thought, led to a casual attitude toward fornication. Bastardy, which was a major scandal and disgrace in the United States, was treated in Arkansas as a purely civil matter. The man involved-or boy, often enough-was expected to recognize his paternity and, if nothing else, provide support for the child. If he didn't, in fact, the penalties visited upon him by the woman's male relatives could be extremely harsh.

But that was as far as it went. He could marry her or not as he chose. For the girl, the matter was purely one of personal preference. She had no worries of being cast out by her family or of being unable to care for the child. As with the Cherokees, the bastard would simply be brought up by the clan-extended and interconnected families, in the case of the negroes-which were developing some of the features of outright clans, as if it were perfectly legitimate.

"And will you look at that white fellow!" Scott chuckled softly. "Every bit as lustful as any plantation owner's scion, except he won't bother hiding the matter."

It was true enough. The young white soldier's eyes were just as bright as those of any of his comrades in uniform, and he was paying very close attention to the prettiest of the negresses. She, for her part, seemed to reciprocate his interest. The New England poet and reporter wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that, some nine months hence, the world's population had been increased by another mulatto.

Again, Bryant's lips tightened disapprovingly. But Scott's quip also brought out that other side of his upbringing. The white Arkansas soldier's lust might be as reprehensible as that of any young plantation owner's son in Virginia or South Carolina, but there remained one critical difference.

"I'm afraid I can't see the analogy, General. Where I come from, rape is not considered to be a form of seduction."

Scott's back stiffened. Bryant realized he'd offended him. His general disapproval of the situation had made his comment emerge more harshly than he'd intended. Winfield Scott was a Virginian himself, after all.

Fortunately, after a moment, Scott seemed to relax. Indeed, he smiled sardonically.

"True enough, William. True enough." Scott gave the young white soldier another glance, then shrugged slightly. "And I'm also a soldier," he murmured, "and a few days from now that boy might very well be torn in half by a cannonball. So I can't say I'll fret over the possibility he might leave something of himself behind."

He took Bryant by the elbow. The crush at the door was easing. The group they'd been observing was already passing through the double doors. "Finally. Our chance! Come on, William. I confess to being rather fascinated by the chance to see how Arkansans will manage a formal ball. Mind you, I expect the worst."

So it proved. By the end of the evening, Bryant felt like a lemon on two legs, so sour had he become.

In truth, it was worse than he'd expected. He'd thought to see a primitive, awkward version of what he might have observed in New York, Boston, or Philadelphia. He'd completely forgotten-or hadn't taken into account-that a high percentage of the population of Arkansas had come here from New Orleans.

That sinful city, with its Creole ways-all the worse, for its black Creoles. La Place des Negres, the semirecognized open market for negroes in northern New Orleans, was notorious for its nightly revels. Its wild dancing to the sound of bamboulas and banzas was now being replicated in New Antrim.

Finally the band started playing more familiar music, and the young revelers assumed the more dignified stances that Bryant associated with American-style dancing. He heaved a small sigh of relief.

Alas.

Not five minutes into the new music, Bryant realized his error. For all the heedless abandon of the previous dances, they'd actually had not much in the way of unsuitable intimate contact. They'd been group dances, basically: congeries and lines of people weaving in and out. Now, however, the theoretically more sedate music allowed young couples to interact quite personally. Which, indeed, they were doing-to a degree that would never have been tolerated in good society in the United States. Not even in Philadelphia or New York, much less Boston.

It was all rather confusing. Part of him was certain he was observing a modern equivalent of Sodom and Gomorrah. In the making, at least, if not quite yet to the biblical standard. Another part, however, was just as certain that the anger of a wrathful deity was centered on other men-the ones even now advancing upon the sinful city from the southeast.

They'd know soon enough, he supposed.

"No."

"Mama!" The wails were simultaneous. Imogene's might have lasted a split second longer.

"No way I letting you two out there. No. Not a chance. End of discussion. And Adaline, too much of your shoulder is showing."

"It's not fair!"

1824: TheArkansasWar