Minnie's Sacrifice

by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Camilla rang the bell; a bright, smiling girl of about ten years appeared. "Tell Miriam," she said, "to come; that her boy Louis is here."

Miriam appeared immediately, and throwing her arms around his neck, gave vent to her feelings in a burst of joy. "I always said you'd come back. I's prayed for you night and day, and I always believed I'd see you afore I died, and now my word's come true. There's nothing like having faith."

"Here's my wife," said Louis, turning to Minnie.

"Your wife; is you married, honey? Well I hopes you'll have a good time."

Minnie came forward and gave her hand to Miriam, as Louis said, "This is my grandmother."

A look of proud satisfaction passed over the old woman's face, and a sudden joy lit up her eyes at these words of pleasant recognition.

"Ah, my child," said Miriam, "We's had a mighty heap of trouble since you left. Them miserable secesh searched the house all over for you, when you was gone, and they was mighty sassy; but we didn't mind that, so they didn't ketch you. How did you get along? We was dreadfully uneasy about you?"

Louis then told them of the kindness of the colored people, his thrilling adventures, and hair-breadth escapes, and unfolded to them his plans for the future.

Camilla listened with deep interest, and turning to Minnie, who had left the peaceful sunshine of her mother's home to dwell in the midst of that rough and rude state of society, she said, "I cannot help feeling sad to see you exposing yourself to the dangers that lay around your path. The few Southern women who have been faithful to the flag have had a sad experience since the war. We have been ostracized and abused, and often our husbands have been brutally murdered, in a number of instances when they were faithful to the dear old flag. A friend of mine, who was an angel of mercy to the Union prisoners, dressing their wounds and carrying them relief, had a dear son, who always kept a Union flag at home, which he regarded with almost religious devotion. This made him a marked boy in the community, and during the war he was so cruelly beaten, by some young rebels, that he never recovered, and colored women who would wend their way under the darkness and cover of night to aid our suffering soldiers, were in danger of being flogged, if detected, and I understand that one did receive 75 lashes for such an offence, and I heard of another who was shot down like a dog, for giving bread to a prisoner, who said, 'Mammy, I am starving.' I think, (but I have no right to dictate to you) had I been you, and my home in the North, that I would have preferred staying there, where, to say the least, you could have had pleasanter social relations. You and Louis are nearer the white race than the colored. Why should you prefer the one to the other?"

"Because," said Minnie, "the prejudices of society are so strong against the people with whom I am connected on my mother's side, that I could not associate with white people on equal terms, without concealing my origin, and that I scorned to do. The first years of my life passed without my knowing that I was connected with the colored race; but when it was revealed to me by mother, who suddenly claimed me, at first I shrank from the social ostracism to which that knowledge doomed me, and it was some time before I was reconciled to the change. Oh, there are lessons of life that we never learn in the bowers of ease. They must be learned in the fire. For months life seemed to me a dull, sad thing, and for a while I did not care whether I lived or died, the sunshine had suddenly faded from my path, and the future looked so dark and cheerless. But now, when I look back upon those days of gloom and suffering, I think they were among the most fruitful of my life, for in those days of pain and sorrow my resolution was formed to join the fortunes of my mother's race, and I resolved to brighten her old age with a joy, with a gladness she had never known in her youth. And how could I have done that had I left her unrecognized and palmed myself upon society as a white woman? And to tell you the truth, having passed most of my life in white society, I did not feel that the advantages of that society would have ever paid me for the loss of my self-respect, by passing as white, when I knew that I was colored; when I knew that any society, however cultivated, wealthy or refined, would not be a social gain to me, if my color and not my character must be my passport of admission. So, when I found out that I was colored, I made up my mind that I would neither be pitied nor patronized by my former friends; but that I would live out my own individuality and do for my race, as a colored woman, what I never could accomplish as a white woman."