"All dis time de rain wuz a-siftin' down. It fall mighty saft, but 'twuz monst'ous wet, suh. Bimeby I crope up nigher de aidge, en w'en de man see me he holler out: 'Hol' on, aunty; don't you fall down yer!'
Harris made his mark as a writer in what became an extremely popular—especially among readers north of the Mason-Dixon Line—literary genre in the decades following the end of Reconstruction. Harris was at the forefront of writers finding tremendous success publishing “dialect stories” which told stories of plantation life in which the dialogue of black slaves was written in heavily dialect form like the above example. If a modern reader confronting an entire page worth of dialogue written in such a manner is moved to wonder how the difficult prospect of working through such passages for translation could have become as popular as it was, it might help to learn that most writers of these stories also made a good living going on tours in which they would read their works. In a way, dialect stories were written just as much for the purpose of oral storytelling as for reading.
“You must admit that but for slavery the negroes who are here would be savages in Africa. As it is, they have had the benefit of more than two hundred years' contact with the white race. If they are at all fitted for citizenship, the result is due to the civilizing influence of slavery. It seems to me that they are vastly better off as American citizens, even though they have endured the discipline of slavery, than they would be as savages in Africa."
The forwarding of such arguments supporting and finding justification for the slave trade and its subsequent abominations against humanity without even the semblance of a properly formed refutation or as much as an outraged reply is one of the reasons that the literary works of Harris has not held up very well over the progression of 20th century liberalization.
He realized the fact that though he was free he was more helpless than any slave. Having no owner, every man was his master.
The reference here is to the title character; a recently freed slave. The underlying concept here may not be immediately clear, but it is one of the reasons that Joel Chandler Harris has over the course the century since his death gone from being a rival of Mark Twain in terms of popularity to being a figure of controversy. This particular quotes fits within a much larger tapestry that defines the author’s entire body of work; a tapestry that strongly suggests life was better as a slave than a former slave.
“He ax me ef de niggers' roun' yer wouldn' all like ter be free, en I tole 'im I don't speck dey would, kaze all de free n*ggers w'at I ever seed is de mos' no-'countes' niggers in de lan'."
An important shift in the treatment of this by Harris occurs in the shift from the opening story “Free Joe” to the succeeding tale “Little Compton.” The difference between a third person narrator suggesting that life is better for slaves while still slaves than for ex-slaves who’ve been freed is one thing. Putting that sentiment directly into the dialect-laden words of a slave (which Jake happens to be) is something else.
The stars shone remote and tranquil, and the serenity of the mountain, the awful silence that seemed to be, not the absence of sound, but the presence of some spiritual entity, gave assurance of peace. Out there, in the cold air, or in the wide skies, or in the vast gulf of night, there was nothing to suggest either pity or compassion—only the mysterious tranquility of nature.
When the contextual problems of race, plantation orthodoxy and sentimental revision are removed and one can more easily approach a story by Harris strictly on the merits of literary quality, it is much easier to understand why among his staunchest admirers was Mark Twain. Set after the Civil War, featuring little in the way of dialect and shifting focus from the relationship between blacks and whites to the relationship between Southerners and Northerners, the writing is the most lyrical found in the collection and pursues more of a melancholic philosophical quality of narration than a troublesome socio-political one. Had Harris pursued more stories of this nature, he might well still be viewed as a rival to Twain.
