Lucille Clifton - What About the Slaves?

‘at the cemetery, walnut grove plantation, south carolina, 1989’

Sep 30, 2008

Lucille Clifton's poetic lament dramatizes the omission of the mention of slavery during a tour she took of Walnut Grove Plantation in South Carolina in 1989.

“among the rocks”

In “at the cemetery, walnut grove plantation, south carolina, 1989,” the speaker addresses the ghost-like presence of the imagined slaves about which she knows nothing. She is convinced that there had to be slaves on this large plantation that was thriving in the early nineteenth century. She dramatically claims that the silence of the slaves was “drumming / in [her] bones.” And she asks them to “tell [her] [their] names.”

“nobody mentioned slaves”

The speaker, who has come to take the plantation tour looking to get a sense of the slaves that she believed worked there, fancies that even though the tour guide has never mentioned slaves, she thinks she intuits their presence: “nobody mentioned slaves / and yet the curious tools / shine with your fingerprints.”

She rationalizes, “somebody did this work.” The owners of the plantation, Charles and Mary Moore, had ten children; might not those children have left those “fingerprints” as they “did this work”? The speaker’s prejudice, however, allows her to concoct her drama as she maintains that those slaves now “moulder[ ] under rock.”

“tell me your names”

The speaker then begs the ghosts to tell her their names and she “will testify.” To what she will “testify” is unclear. If the slaves existed, they lived and worked as such. Perhaps, she wishes simply to cite their names, which is an admirable thought, despite the impossibility of ever knowing those names.

She claims that the “inventory lists ten slaves / but only men were recognized.” This possible factoid gives, if accurate, the female speaker another issue over which to express indignation.

“among the rocks”

The speaker then muses that in the cemetery some of those buried must be slaves, and, of course, some of those slaves were women. They all did “honored work.”

Again, the speaker demands of the imagined ghostly presences that they reveal their names. They were “foremothers, brothers,” and she wants to know their “dishonored names.” They are “dishonored” because the speaker does not know their names and has no hope of finding out exactly who they were.

“here lies”

The final five lines of the poem repeat the line “here lies” four times and ends with “hear.” She would like to add a name to each line, but since she is unable to do so, she offers one last command: she wants them to “hear” that she would honor them if she could.

Commentary

Poets are not reliable historians, and Lucille Clifton’s account must be taken as a poet’s musing, not true testimony. About 39% of the plantations in the south did not have slaves, and around 1850, there was an increase in the price of male slaves from $1500 to $2000. By 1860, that percentage had risen to 48%. So it is possible that the Walnut Grove Plantation did not, in fact, have slaves.