Sugar in the Blood

Literary Review #1: Sugar in the Blood

Part 1

In the story Sugar in the Blood, we learn about the history of the ancestors of a woman named Andrea Stuart. Robert Cooper Ashby was the owner of a plantation called "plantocrat," and was also the great-great-great-great grandfather to the author. She tells us about his life from the time he was a child until his death. Robert's father was a man named George Ashby, and over the course of his life he managed to expand the small nine acres of land he owned to twenty-one acres, and he acquired nine slaves. As a child, Robert Cooper Ashby grew up around slavery and saw it as a normal part of his everyday life. He learned to "sleep through the sound of the bell that summoned the slaves to the fields just before sun-up, and he took for granted the sight of slave gangs working in the cane fields" (page 137). I found this particular part of the story interesting. He grew up seeing these slaves as if they weren't even humans, but just property or machines that were placed on this earth to work for his family, and I'm not blaming him for this. It was all he knew, but it saddens me that he found normalcy in what was happening around him. "He was able to ignore the crack of the whip and the strangled cries of the slaves: a selective deafness that would amaze newcomers to the island" (page 137).

Robert Cooper Ashby inherited the land his father owned upon his death. Although he was now an owner of land and slaves, he still did not own much in comparison to the island's elite. His life took a turn for the better when he was just 18 years old when he married Mary Burke, whose family was well established on the island due to their success in sugar cultivation. Cooper gained "not only his wife's fortune, but took several steps up the social ladder, acquiring some of her family's considerable culture cachet along the way" (page 151). The story made it clear, that at this time men held all the power. As soon as Mary married Robert Cooper, her fortune was now his. Her wealth, independence and power were immediately swept away (page 151). Under Cooper's control, the plantation grew to 350 acres and over 200 slaves, and even had its own hospital and jail (page 154). After marrying Mary, Cooper was able to expand the plantation to its most expansive. I thought it was interesting that it took Mary's wealth to allow Cooper to become one of the island's elite.

Part 2

Robert Cooper Ashby had sexual relationships with several slaves, and from these relationships he produced at least 17 mulatto children. One of them was named John Stephen Ashby, and he is the author's great-great-great grandfather. John Stephen Ashby was given what Stuart refers to as the "gift of trade," by his father Robert (page 209). John Stephen was taught the trade of carpentry, and this skill gave him a better quality of life than slaves that worked on the plantation. "His superior status was recognized by everyone on the plantation, black and white.