Slavery In Naylor's Mama Day

Mama Day tells the story of the descendants of a black slave woman named Sapphira Wade and is focusing primarily on their heritage and identity. I believe, the author is omitting the spouses of the slave’s descendants from the family tree, because she focuses on the ancestral belonging and cultural heritage of Sapphira’s children and grandchildren only.

The novel starts with two documents, a family tree showing Sapphira Wade’s descendants and a bill of sell, which help frame the book within the history and black slavery. Naylor’s inclusion of the bill of sale gives the audience the first indication that the novel is a discourse on slavery. A segment of the bill of sale refers to “Sapphira is half prime, inflicted with sullenness and entertains a bilious nature, having resisted under reasonable chastisement the performance of field or domestic labour” (Naylor, p.2). The reader witnesses the power of the language to conceal the truth and hide the horrors of slavery.

Sapphira’s nature is described as irrational considering her slave owner’s good treatment and “reasonable chastisement”. The words defeat Sapphira by criminalizing her behavior.
The novel continues with the voice of Willow Springs’s resident, who tells the story of the island, its inhabitants and the main character Mama Day, who knows herbal cures and can summon lightning with her walking stick. Mada Day knows the great story of the great, great Mother Sapphira Wade, who in 1823 persuaded her master to deed the island to his slaves “bore him seven sons in just a thousand days, to put a dagger through his kidney and escape the hangman’s noose, laughing in a burst of flames. “(Naylor, p.3)
I feel the ancestry and slavery are important to Mama Day, because remembering the life of your predecessors helps you to survive difficult stages of your life. For example, Sapphira’s traditions and attitude helped Cocoa to survive in New York City.
The slavery is important in the legend of Sapphira Wade, because teaches us about the power of human spirit and its passion for freedom, which the author expresses in George words
“No, there was something more, and something deeper than the old historical line about slave 5 women and their white masters. A slave hadn’t lived in this house. And without a slave, there could be no master. What had Miss Miranda said—he [Bascombe Wade] had claim to her body, but not her mind?” (225) The author explores how the descendants of slaves mediate their ancestor’s experience of slavery and how the magical legend of the slave woman’s superpower become a tradition in the island of Willow Springs “Willow Springs. Everybody knows but nobody talks about the legend of Sapphira Wade. A true conjure woman: satin black, biscuit cream, red and Georgia clay: depending upon which of us takes a mind to her. She could walk through a lightning storm without being touched; grab a bolt of lightening in the palm of her hand; use the heat of lightning to start the kindling going under her medicine pot: depending upon which of us takes a mind to her¬” (Naylor, p.3).
Mama Day is a great novel about women and traditions passed from one generation to another generation.

At first look we see ordinary women with extraordinary ability to change the lives of the people around them. Mama (Miranda) Day is a literal descendant of Sapphira and her spiritual reincarnation. She is the midwife, doctor and priestess to the people of Willow Springs. Mama Day is a person with strong convictions and true sense of the world around her. She is respected, loved deeply by the family and even feared by her community, because of her remedies and cures. Mama Day with her ability to heal and seer is a vivid example of her predecessor’s heritage and traditions, something that all inhabitants in Willow Spring cherish and treasure.

In conclusion, if the bill of sale represents a justification for black slavery, the story of Sappira Wade and her descendants counters this enslavement of black women, by presenting portraits of African-American women and their desire of freedom and

equality.