Send One Angel Down. Virginia Frances Schwartz. New York, NY: Holiday House (Distributed in Canada by Thomas Allen & Sons Ltd.), 2000. 163 pp., cloth, $26.95. ISBN 0-8234-1484-1. Subject Headings: Slavery-Fiction. Afro-Americans-Fiction. Racially-mixed people-Fiction. Grades 7-9 / Ages 12-14. Review by Anne Letain. **** /4

excerpt:

They’d whisper it ‘low cause the overseer would swing by with his whip if he heard. But those babies couldn’t hear anyone a half mile across the field. Overseer had carved out the middle of a rotten log like a long cradle and set them inside. They couldn’t crawl anywhere if they had wanted to. Their mommas set’em inside come dawn and ran back to ‘em at noon.

Came a thunder and lightning one day like the end of the world. A spring storm rode in like a surprise. It grabbed us up so quick, we didn’t know it was coming. One minute, a cloud sailed from the north, and by the next breath, it was on top of heads, purple mad. Thunder growled and lightning lit the field so, it near blinded us. We couldn’t even see where were at. Couldn’t run for cover either. We hid our faces under our arms. Quick as it began, it stopped.

One mother bolted across the field though it wasn’t allowed. The others ran after her to the oak tree. There came a screaming that curdled my blood. It sounded like a pack of wild animals let loose. We all stopped to look up. Mothers lifted their limp babies to the sky and shook them hard.

Overseer rode over to them and cursed, “What’s this fussin’ about?”

“They all dead!” they wailed. “Drowned in their cradle!”

By the 1930’s, it was becoming evident that the oral histories and traditions of the last living American slaves would be lost forever. The Federal Writers’ Project undertook to interview the frail and elderly ex-slaves and to record their stories of plantation life and the abuse endured there. It was the recollections of one Doc Daniel Dowdy which became the catalyst for this amazing, powerful and painful novel.

     This is Eliza’s story as told through the words of her cousin Abram who is her self-described protector. Eliza has been fathered by the plantation owner while her mother is one of the slaves assigned to the “breeding cabins” where young female slaves give birth. Her mother has been permitted to keep Eliza as she is the master’s favorite slave, and Abram is permitted to stay in the breeding cabins as he is seen to be needed by Granny who is the overseer of the breeding cabins.

     But, time is not on Eliza or Abram’s side. When it is realized that Abram is old enough to work the cotton fields, he is dispatched post haste. When the master’s daughters realize that Eliza is a threat to them through her mulatto beauty and blue eyes, she is also sent out to the fields to toil. But this isn’t enough, and she is soon sent to auction to be sold. In a miraculous twist of fate, she is bought by a Northern abolitionist who agrees to take her north because of her skills in child care.

     Schwartz has created a passionate polemic of life in the Old South, one that simply resonates with emotion contrasting the privations and cruelties of the white owners with the love and attachment that the slaves had for each other. Schwartz uses an unusual motif very effectively to convey the soul of slave society – their music. The slaves sang everywhere, burying their emotion in their songs as they worked in the cotton fields, churning butter, at births and funerals, and of course leaving us all with an enduring and wonderful legacy.

     If there is a criticism of this fine first novel, it is that the story is largely one sided and conceived to reveal the worst horrors and injustices experienced by the slaves. The master and his family and any other non-slaves are seen largely in stereotype. However, a powerful indictment of man’s inhumanity to man, Send One Angel Down is still a must purchase and a must share for any schools which feature Black history as part of their curriculum.

Highly Recommended.

Anne Letain is a teacher-librarian and school library consultant in Southern Alberta.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

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Published by The Manitoba Library Association ISSN 1201-9364

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