Sleep Fictions: A Digital Companion

Wolf1

Dan feels “ez ti’ed ez ef he had n’ be’n ter sleep” after the Conjure Man takes him out and rides him night after night. Whereas Julius is specific in his detail of animal transformation—such as Dan’s becoming lupine and Mahaly feline, he leaves the reader to wonder what form Dan is in when he is taken out and ridden by Jube. The story implies that it is his own body, in a somnambulist state, that is treated like a vehicle for the Conjure Man’s amusement. In this way, “The Gray Wolf’s Ha’nt” provides a fantastical portrait of a common occurrence within slavery life, in which the enslaved awoke each morning feeling as if their bodies—suffering constant abuse from forces outside their control—never achieved restorative rest.

Chesnutt brings this to light later in The Marrow of Tradition (1901),* when Sandy tells Tom Delamere: “Dere’s somethin’ wrong ‘bout dese clo’s er mine—I don’ never seem ter be able ter keep ‘em clean no mo’. Ef I b’lieved in dem ole-timey sayin’s, I’d ‘low dere wuz a witch come here eve’y night an’ tuk ‘em out an’ wo’ ‘em, er tuk me out an’ rid me in ‘em (161). In citing one of “dem ole-timey sayin’s,” Sandy recalls the days in which slaves employed superstition to reconcile the trauma of enslavement. Whether from anxiety of the next day’s mistreatment—or for women, abuse during the night—slaves felt as if their bodies were constantly worn away—even in moments when they should achieve rest.

Like the malevolent tactics Jube uses to torture Dan, planters and overseers sought to moderate the sleep of the enslaved so that the latter had just enough energy to get through a day’s work. Depending on the conditions of a plantation, those enslaved were prescribed a very specific window of time in which to rest. For many, however, this was their only time to meet the myriad needs they were denied during the day—sleep being only one of many. According to Benjamin Reiss (Wild Nights: How Taming Sleep Created Our Restless World [2017]):

"Controlling and interpreting sleep had important ramifications in a slaveholding society. Taking charge of the sleep-wake cycle was a way to break slaves, to make maximum profit, and to protect the white slaveholding class from retribution. Slaveholders had to strike a careful balance: they had to allow enough sleep for their captive workforce’s labor to be profitable, yet not so much that they might be clear-eyed and energetic enough to escape" (Reiss 134).

This “careful balance” of sleep that enslavers hoped to achieve stymied enslaved people's efforts to provide for their own needs during the night. In his autobiography** (1845), for instance, Frederick Douglass recalls spending his nightly hours plotting his escape, even though he was granted but a few hours of sleep at night. Recalling his worst years of slavery, Douglass writes: “Work, work, work, was scarcely more the order of the day than of the night. The longest days were too short for [Mr. Covey], and the shortest nights too long for him” (63). Douglass describes the toll such a “careful balance” of sleep and wakefulness took on his body: “Sunday was my only leisure time. I spent this in a sort of beast-like stupor, between sleep and wake, under some large tree. At times I would rise up, a flash of energetic freedom would dart through my soul, accompanied with a faint beam of hope, that flickered for a moment, and then vanished” (63): 

"I lived with Mr. Covey one year. During the first six months, of that year, scarce a week passed without his whipping me. I was seldom free from a sore back. My awkwardness was almost always his excuse for whipping me. We were worked fully up to the point of endurance. Long before day we were up, our horses fed, and by the first approach of day we were off to the field with our hoes and ploughing teams. Mr. Covey gave us enough to eat, but scarce time to eat it. We were often less than five minutes taking our meals. We were often in the field from the first approach of day till its last lingering ray had left us; and at saving-fodder time, midnight often caught us in the field binding blades. Covey would be out with us. The way he used to stand it, was this. He would spend the most of his afternoons in bed. He would then come out fresh in the evening, ready to urge us on with his words, example, and frequently with the whip. Mr. Covey was one of the few slaveholders who could and did work with his hands. He was a hard-working man. He knew by himself just what a man or a boy could do. There was no deceiving him. His work went on in his absence almost as well as in his presence; and he had the faculty of making us feel that he was ever present with us. This he did by surprising us. He seldom approached the spot where we were at work openly, if he could do it secretly. He always aimed at taking us by surprise. Such was his cunning, that we used to call him, among ourselves, "the snake." When we were at work in the cornfield, he would sometimes crawl on his hands and knees to avoid detection, and all at once he would rise nearly in our midst, and scream out, "Ha, ha! Come, come! Dash on, dash on!" This being his mode of attack, it was never safe to stop a single minute. His comings were like a thief in the night. He appeared to us as being ever at hand. He was under every tree, behind every stump, in every bush, and at every window, on the plantation. He would sometimes mount his horse, as if bound to St. Michael's, a distance of seven miles, and in half an hour afterwards you would see him coiled up in the corner of the wood-fence, watching every motion of the slaves. He would, for this purpose, leave his horse tied up in the woods. Again, he would sometimes walk up to us, and give us orders as though he was upon the point of starting on a long journey, turn his back upon us, and make as though he was going to the house to get ready; and, before he would get half way thither, he would turn short and crawl into a fence-corner, or behind some tree, and there watch us till the going down of the sun. 

If at any one time of my life more than another, I was made to drink the bitterest dregs of slavery, that time was during the first six months of my stay with Mr. Covey. We were worked in all weathers. It was never too hot or too cold; it could never rain, blow, hail, or snow, too hard for us to work in the field. Work, work, work, was scarcely more the order of the day than of the night. The longest days were too short for him, and the shortest nights too long for him. I was somewhat unmanageable when I first went there, but a few months of this discipline tamed me. Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me. I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute! Sunday was my only leisure time. I spent this in a sort of beast-like stupor, between sleep and wake, under some large tree. At times I would rise up, a flash of energetic freedom would dart through my soul, accompanied with a faint beam of hope, that flickered for a moment, and then vanished. I sank down again, mourning over my wretched condition. I was sometimes prompted to take my life, and that of Covey, but was prevented by a combination of hope and fear. My sufferings on this plantation seem now like a dream rather than a stern reality" (61-4). 

*Permalink: https://archive.org/download/marrowtradition00chesgoog/
**Permalink: https://archive.org/download/narrativeoflife1845doug/

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