Conservation vs. Progression: Defining Right in The Known World

The social landscape during the time of slavery in the United States caused morality to seem less fixed and more relative in the eyes of many white Southerners.  For white slave owners, such as William Robbins, “right” meant insuring the prosperity of the Southern economy by preventing abolitionists from buying slaves’ freedom.  After hearing of abolitionists buying the freedom of Toby and his sister, Robbins wishes to take violent action.  When Sheriff Gilly Patterson dismisses Robbins, Robbins claims, “You don’t know what the difficulty is in keeping the world right” (38).  For Robbins, “right” means "keeping," or conserving, the traditional norms of his land as a way of maintaining order.  Robbins refers to the abolitionists as “threats loose on the land” who wish to “steal their livelihood”.  Robbins fears these abolitionists because they represent a progressive movement with the goal of eradicating a traditional form of living that Robbins and other slave owners rely on.

 Whereas Robbins defines “right” as the conservation of and loyalty for old institutions, Augustus claims “right” to be a respect for fellow humans, an ideal more in alignment with the humane Abolitionist Movement.  When Augustus and Mildred are freed, both continue to visit Henry who remains enslaved on Robbins’ plantation.  Each Sunday, they would wait for Henry to arrive, yet many times Henry would never show up.  Upon meeting them another week, Henry claims to have “forgotten” about meeting his parents.  Augustus requests that his son “try to remember” and “know the right way” (18).  Right is used to describe a correct literal path one must use in order to get to a desired destination, the destination here being the wagon his parents have traveled in.  Yet it is not that Henry went down the wrong path and did not find them, but that he simply forgot about his parents, a disrespect Augustus indirectly deems “the wrong way” when reminding Henry that he needs to know “the right way” of how to treat his parents.  After Augustus reminds Henry to “know the right way,” Henry “does right” the next Sunday by remembering to see his parents but then not showing up the next Sunday.  Henry’s struggle to “know the right way” is one that continues throughout his life.  When Henry eventually becomes a slave owner, he is forgetting about not only his parents, but his entire African American kin.