By Kathleen Rice Adams
She’s the sweetest rose of color this darky ever knew.
Her eyes are bright as diamonds, they sparkle like the dew.
You may talk about your Dearest May, and sing of Rosa Lee,
But the Yellow Rose of Texas beats the belles of Tennessee.
In its original form, the song tells the story of a black
man (“darky”) who has been separated from his sweetheart and longs to reunite
with her. The lyrics indicate the sweetheart was a free mulatto woman—a person
of mixed black and white heritage. In those days, “person of color” was
considered a polite way to refer to black people who were not slaves. “Yellow”
was a common term for people of mixed race.
During the Civil War, “The Yellow Rose of Texas” became a
popular marching tune for troops all over the Confederacy; consequently, the
lyrics changed. White Confederates were not eager to refer to themselves as
darkies, so “darky” became “soldier.” In addition, “rose of color” became “little
flower.”
Aside from the obvious racist reasons for the modifications,
legal doctrine played into the picture as well. Until the U.S. Supreme Court
declared the practice unconstitutional in 1967, all eleven former Confederate
states plus Delaware, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and West Virginia outlawed marriage
and sexual relations between whites and blacks. In four of the former Confederate
states—Georgia, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia—marriage or sexual
relations between whites and any
non-white was labeled a felony. Such laws were called anti-miscegenation laws,
or simply miscegenation laws. In order to draw what attorneys term a “bright
line” between legal and illegal behavior, many states codified the “single-drop
rule,” which held that a person with a single drop of Negro blood was black, regardless
the color of his or her skin.
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| "New Orleans' Voodoo Queen" Marie Laveau (1774-1881) was a free Creole of mixed race. |
The first American miscegenation laws arose in the colonies
in the 1600s. The laws breathed their last gasp in 2001, when Alabama finally
removed the anti-miscegenation clause from its state constitution after a referendum
passed with only sixty percent of the popular vote.
Texas’s miscegenation law plays a role in “The Big Uneasy,”
my contribution to Prairie Rose Publications’ new anthology Lassoing a Mail-Order Bride. After the
death of his wife, the bridegroom’s father engages in an illicit relationship with a free Creole of color. The practice
was not uncommon in the heroine’s hometown, New Orleans, but if the indiscretion gets out in Texas, the wealthy, powerful family could be ruined.
Here’s an excerpt from the story.
The Big Uneasy
A man in love with a woman he can’t have. A woman engaged to a man she
doesn’t love. A secret in common could destroy them all.
June 1860, the Texas
Crescent
Josephine LaPierre nearly tumbled from the seat when the buggy’s
wheel struck yet another hole in the muddy road. She gripped the padded armrest
with one hand and steadied the tiny dog in her lap with the other. Vibration
beneath her gloved fingers warned of an impending explosion of temper.
“Hush, Napoleon.” She scratched behind his bat-like ears
until he quieted. “All is well, mon petit.”
Napoleon sneezed. After turning three circles in her lap, he
nestled into Jo’s skirt. She bestowed a fond smile upon her fearsome bodyguard,
running a hand across the top of his head and down his smooth back. Her tiny
knight in soft, fawn-colored armor.
The man beside her took the horse in hand with a flick of
his wrist, passing an amused glance over Jo and the dog. “Feisty little
critter, ain’t he?”
The suppressed laughter in startling blue eyes sent a
flicker of heat dancing across Jo’s cheekbones. She looked away. “He can be. I
warn you, his bark is not worse than his bite.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Chuckling, the driver scratched
the top of the little dog’s head.
Jo tensed, prepared to intervene, but Napoleon stretched
toward his admirer and licked the man’s glove.
The driver withdrew his hand to run a finger between his
stand-up collar and his neck. Then he swatted at his dark broadcloth trousers
and frockcoat as if they inconvenienced him, as well. “I imagine this trip’s
been a mite rough on you and that little fella.”
Not in the least disposed to admit her posterior might never
be the same, Jo pulled on the most gracious smile she could find. “Monsieur—”
“Amon.” Though gentle, the correction was much firmer than
she was accustomed to hearing from servants. “No monsieur about it. Just Amon.” The French word rolled from his lips
with practiced ease. How odd.
“Amon. How much farther must we travel?”
“Won’t be long now. House is just up the road a piece.”
Her gaze followed his nod. How could anyone judge distance
in such a place? Texas was nothing at all like New Orleans. Although the land
here lay as flat as at home, Texas remained wild and unpopulated. Even on the
docks where she disembarked hours ago, no laughing patois chatter brightened her ears, nor did young women of color in
vivid tignons compete for attention
with azaleas and bougainvillea. No aroma of magnolia and honeysuckle, of strong
coffee and fresh beignets, greeted
her arrival.
The afternoon sun, brighter here somehow, chased the last of
the morning’s rain from the landscape. The scent of wet earth rose with the
steam, intertwining with damp wood and a vague fishiness from the nearby bayou.
Strange cattle with wicked, curling horns as long as their bodies dotted miles
and miles of green, overgrown in patches with thorny brush and vines. Here and
there, brief flashes of yellow peeked from tall, waving grass.
What did Texans eat and drink and admire in this odd,
monochromatic country? What did they do for entertainment? With no other humans
around to practice the art of conversation, did they forget how to speak?
Jo flicked open the blades of sandalwood dangling from her
wrist and fanned herself and Napoleon in an unsuccessful attempt to dissipate
the suffocating heat. “Have you worked for Monsieur
Collier long?”
Rubbing knuckles along the line of a strong jaw, Amon stared
over the bay horse’s ears. “All my life.”
His voice, quiet yet strong, soothed some of her unease. The
man spoke at least a little French. Perhaps a modicum of civilization existed
in the wilderness. “Tell me about him, s'il
vous plaît.”
“Not much to tell.” The gaze he swung from one horizon to
the other caressed each tree, each blade of grass in its path. “Edson Collier
owns everything we’ve driven through. All you can see, smell, taste, or touch.
Every living thing on this property wears a Collier brand.”
“And the man I am to marry?”
“Bennett?” Amon shook his head on a wry huff. “Bennett
Collier is educated to within an inch of his life. Smart, wealthy, ambitious.
He’ll run this state in a few years.”
A man of such stature would take pride in protecting his
wife, his children. Maman and Céline would have approved.
Maman and Céline.
Of all the things Jo would miss about New Orleans, she would miss her mother
and sister the most—and the tidy cottage in The Marigny.
But not the man inside. Lucien
Bouchard. The Devil with an angel’s face…and enough money and influence to
buy anything and anyone he wanted. She pressed fingertips to her lips to settle
a familiar surge of bile.
"The Big Uneasy"
To escape the unthinkable with a man about whom she knows too
much, New Orleans belle Josephine LaPierre agrees to marry a Texan about whom
she knows nothing.
Falling in love with his brother was not part of her plan.
You can lasso a
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