Since the Nathan Bedford Forrest bust is going to remain on the Capitol grounds, I had this idea that it would be fun to do, say, a weekly post about things you don't normally hear about Nathan Bedford Forrest—a celebration of this great man and Tennessean worthy of glorification. That way, we could all be steeped in the history our forebears (or at least Doug Henry) thought we should honor.
Since the four years that Forrest served in the Confederate Army are so well-documented, I thought I'd look at the twenty years before that, which, for some reason, don't receive the same level of intense scrutiny.
But the truth is that it took about twenty minutes of research for me to discover that I don't have the stomach for it. It's a mixture of him being a slave trader, of the glowingly nice things white people on the internet say about Forrest's slave trading as if slave trading isn't inherently disgusting, and the fact that he's a sick fuck, which, you know, shouldn't really be surprising. But I guess I held out hope that, maybe, just maybe all the men in Tennessee who still gush about him like he's their first crush were right about him being worthy, at least in some lights, of adoration.
But no, he really is exactly what you'd imagine a guy who bought and sold people would be like.
In early 1859, a brief story appeared in a handful of Southern papers. The first one I saw was in the January 20, 1859, edition of the Winchester, Tennessee paper The Home Journal. It reads
FRED DOUGLASS' DAUGHTER FOR SALEAmong the servants offered for sale by a Mr. Forrest of Memphis, Tenn., is a girl who is known to be the daughter of the notorious Fred Douglass, the "free-nigger" Abolitionist.—She is said to be of the class known among the dealers as a "likely girl," and is a native of North Carolina.—She remembers her "parient" very vividly, having seen him during his last visit to the Old North State. The Memphis Avalanche suggests that as Fred is ample able to make the outlay he should either purchase his own flesh and blood from servitude, or cease his shrieks over an institution which possesses such untold horrors.
The historians I found who were aware of this strange piece seem to believe that it was written by Forrest as a kind of viral marketing for his business. It's also clearly supposed to be a snide and funny "fuck you" to Douglass. Oh, ho ho, Douglass thinks slavery is so awful, does he? Then why won't he save his own daughter from it? Guess it's not that bad, then.
There's a lot to think about here. Let's start with the easy stuff. Forrest didn't have Douglass's daughter for sale. Douglass didn't live in or, as far as I can tell, ever travel to North Carolina, especially not after he escaped slavery. This is a dig at Douglass's work as an abolitionist, but I think it's also supposed to be a dig at his work for women's rights. If he loves slaves and women so much, why doesn't he pay to free this one?
But you can see, too, why some historians believe this isn't just an insult hurled at Douglass, but a piece of marketing. Look how it's designed to raise the emotions of white Southerners. That "notorious Fred Douglass." That "abolitionist." That guy who can travel freely and widely, who has "ample" money, money enough to buy a woman if he wanted. Don't you, 1850s white reader, hate that jackass?
What action can the white man of 1859 take? He's riled up. He's ready to do something. What would really stick it to that pompous Fred Douglass? Like any good piece of advertising, it's built up emotion and, in order to be effective, needs to offer us catharsis through consumerism. What could they buy that would soothe that feeling?
And here's the sick part. It's not just that 1850s Man could buy Douglass's fake daughter before Douglass can. No, this article is suggesting something worse, there in the part where we learn "she is said to be of the class known among the dealers as a 'likely girl.'" A 'likely girl,' like a 'fancy girl' is a woman you buy to rape. You want to stick it to Fredrick Douglass? Buy his "daughter" and keep her as your rape victim.
This is on the front page of the paper.
The only sliver of good news I could squeeze out of this whole thing is this: When someone tells you that slave owners just didn't now better, that it was just their culture and they didn't know it was wrong, you can point to this. They knew that what slave owners did to those 'likely girls,' was so bad that a father who loved his daughter would not want it to happen to her.
And Nathan Bedford Forrest was the kind of guy who made sure it did.
