A Word on Words; 3526; Madison Smartt Bell

as babies liz from nashville studio way celebrating offers literature and ideas for more than three decades this is word on words with johnson on john simko welcome once again the word on

words i guess today an old friend madison smartt bell is here to talk about his new book to sean belcher that isn't looking the world once again twenty five years ago uk we will allow more every book i think you've been back i think i'm awesome willingness of this and now and now on another not the last by any means but another you've been here three times before to talk about the same man <unk> thousand and inexhaustible supply of the other the other three books were a fictional yes you get the factors you had them men they created varieties must've anomalous the space between the lines and and filled it with the lovely fascinating

ways to interpret there's revolutionary let's talk about him now as a figure of five well one interesting things about his elevators and there's a fear factor is that there are two different stories and one was partly then of violence in writing this biography earth i found that he was maybe the first person that i can think of really understood what we now call spin control managing your own story because the the thing that he successfully kept dark for really almost two hundred years was that although he landed a community of about eight hundred thousand slaves to freedom beginning in the seventeen nikes he was not himself a slave in that revolution began he was a free man he was surprised a prosperous man he was a landowner and he own slaves himself was a patient lives

as and as i put down the book i was i was going to say you must read this book to my wife because the secret didn't come out in nineteen seventy yes they discovered they discovered that he was a free man in a slave owner and seventies seventy six teresa notary notary papers where he and i think he freed his life and that left a paper trail and there was a note that he himself had down free as of that as of the year before so like a reliable day one of his savings at the map about his situation was an incredibly complex society of colonial settlement today's ad people are not to the largest group the black slaves but the smallest group black freedom there was a large free population that wasn't white but they were a mixed blind people of goes on

and that they were completely different race and social class from the free blacks who are much fewer number haiti is a bizarre what was called then but haiti continues his country continues at times the thorn sometimes we get those rows when you with when you read the history of the slave revolts in an isis and elevate you find out that nat turner and a dozen others are more were inspired by him n n and they were inspired not knowing that he led a rebellion as a freeman well for sure what his own richer identified himself with the vast majority of slaves and the team talk to invade terms about having there are slight himself with india arie well he worked his way to

freedom but as possible to do than using a lot of very specialized skills it hadn't been invented then there in madison and people madison avenue and not politics really he was a good leader and a good manager and he was very useful too the plantation managers who were his owners in the beginning and that i think is probably how it was freedom but the us it certainly became a symbol of the spartacus like self liberating slaven and then you know an ultimate sense ep was that uncertainly for four people in the united states to remain in slavery for premier another hundred years after the revolution that story for all the white population in the united states tried to suppress that was now dead travel and was very exciting example of course for

nat turner people like that they didn't have the advantage of numbers that existed for slaves and not for cinematic and they don't have the most cases the advantage of to re know and their own they're embedded in each of those rows of it was doomed by numbers and firepower from from the outset i mean you do you could envision that they would take over a religion came close and a couple cases but but he was always there as a symbol of having done it so the fact that you know he comes out of slavery in almost immediately begins to buy land a document that pretty soon after yes indeed be on the line a land are both tommy was done what he reporter were very end of his life when he was a prisoner in france or three four large tracks in the center of haiti and they're gone at youth and some

awesome ranch land which is for a livestock and horses on the central plateau which she acquired after the revolution going forward and smashed i think he probably am more of your reporting to find solace were quite significant the book begins with this proclamation army is declaring himself an and this is for sending it to them singing sending it starts then but he's been into it as a figure behind the saints for years well for it and seventy nine there was a vast preplanned well planned well organized insurrection of slaves on the northern plains where their population as large as the night and about twenty four hours they burn the whole search a country and drove the nation to

atlanta since the word though gave you fall area was just on fire to survey birds very well and the white population was forced back into the fortified tent unaccustomed no man i kind of draw situation that we're and four almost a year and during that time to sell a richer he was not a call to sell a router he was called a man who knows a slice an adolescent he was coaches outbreak and that was a plantation where he had been a slave allow he wasn't actually a slave there was seemed to be nevertheless the impression that he was able to make and everybody an easy job when he stayed there in the body tested and there are a couple of other plantations in that area that now by tyson this is really pretty remarkable for them to remain intact and rivers of far apart around them in clothes on the other side in these are plantations that work you're

affiliated with organizers of the original revolt and there's a very controversial idea that it was planned in the beginning that was instigated by a royalist white people you're operating in the context of the french revolution and start writing because and because you point out that this had to be preposterous idea that that the royalists are in control would permit a slave revolt to occur but knowing that they would continue to hold sway will they didn't get state paid somehow deliver themselves and i will believe that this really us what happened that they convince themselves that they could contain and that they could deal with a certain number of leaders who would say the slaves about and they would destroy property to probably could've been planning their planning for them to kill people to the extent that they did which was quite considerable

and scare the hell out of the revolutionary france who were also present in the county and so that the royal us can remain in the ascendancy in the colony and probably make it less quasar independent refuge for a royals from france that he needed something like that very badly at that time perhaps slightly under the protection of the british monarchy i think that was the idea that it was a very risky idea in hindsight completely insane but they were desperate and i think they thought it would work in part because of this in paris at work in somewhat the same way where the minds of a working class population would be over two is stirred up and directed to ride in and these things and then bake it also cass sorta was some success be told to requests

it turned out with these are probably maybe two hundred thousand slaves on the northern climate cannot tell him to quit they were to listen to that but there was a lot of correspondents and if you read the cars fun that's closely with there certainly don't write in the sport you get a sense that there was a deal that are broken down and of course nobody comes right out and says what it was in a letter or because it was a very treacherous secret you originally for whiteness of years but you can you can see the busses were saying wait this is not supposed to go this way we have to some outright find our way back so where we start and so we can cool things and it just says that he waits back during those two years letting other leaders of the rural vote emerge standard nonstarters for those he was working with them on the same that's what i believe ii you can't really prove that but the likelihood i

think is that that he was in on it at the beginning and did not want to appear in the beginning a case didn't work out what i will leave the city when the white people propose this idea and these are people with and he was closely associated as a free man in fact he had some common interest with them he thought this is going be a whole lot bigger than they think this is an opportunity for freedom for farmers and i think he saw that at the beginning but he stayed behind the saints and so it was clear that they had gone over the edge sedate they passed the point of no return at the boy and the weekend to seventy nine three or higher he declared and so for the first time he in fact laden seventeen ninety one had gone out into the mountains and joy and the rebel forces was ridden brother disorient us

under the title janet mann says the general posture of the surgeon general for for this character and he had invited not when the proclamation which and the teachers here i am well you get in the end as fraternizing with him and seventy nine three the opening salvo in those i am to sell a richer which is a very loaded word that he chose for his last name as the french are open until ten years and to de france listeners that would suggest that he was opening the way to freedom in the future too ms hazan audience it would be an association with the spirit in the pantheon of of what's today's world about who has a figure somewhat like the greek armies of the guardian of crossroads and gate and so there was a religious dimension to this tune and it was it was a multi

layered coded message and it's very shortsighted three or four sinus is in the rest of it is i'm i'm fighting for freedom i'm your brother so if the law so its orange revolution join me and we will fight together for this for the same class and he did is he did use some of the literary inequality terms of the french revolution but the date when he released a statement was the same day that a french revolutionaries who was had been sent out to assume to sell garment tally lays it from the city's salted nuts head for playing the abolition of slavery was discovered the us removal of the sport it is it was very well informed on both sides knew that this was coming and so his proclamation has to be understood and i can sense that he wanted at the very same mountain to say i'm of the alternative is not re interview it's not white frenchmen his guilt who's going to get your freedom as kennedy me there were a fight for it and he

said the fighting with nikki silva knox continues to be put it was almost silly and sauce and ice was an interesting but i figure as that he was a lawyer from provincial france seems prowl bowl and normally that isn't so that he was an abolitionist and apart from the dna but that he had no mandate from the french government to abolish slavery in fact when he did it he was acting on his own authority can to sell a richer the point was fighting for the spanish viewers still slave powered still a monarchy hot so he was still on the royals' side but what he then did he did not believe that he had informants in france as well as in the colony that so the max's proclamation of emancipation and seventy nine three was necessarily domestic and he waited to see again the dates are will deteriorate has officially word that the first

national assembly had confirmed the emancipation the korean of the abolition of slavery didn't arrive for about three months but in fact it only takes a navy seals lead to so if you look at if you look at twelve week period you find that around the time that probably this news will leak into the economy that's when to sow and richard assassinated so exhilarated tucson you think the other thing is i think he knew about six weeks after it happened because that's when he began to make changes lives is that at that point so tonight's was in a desperate situation he was losing wars within english you invaded it was having trouble with the different factions of those are responses of people and he left the country leaving

leaving the military command in the hands of the young general holder jim lovell who was a french nobleman but enough of progressive and thus revolutionary sympathies and it was a level you've made he made an alliance with literature in fact accepted him as a junior officer under the command of little to sell fought for the french revolution and drove out and us invasion and pushed the spanish back into their car the country were to eventually take over the head of that a very close relationship and that produced the largest body of correspondence that is her world literature a variety he would write his reports and so interwoven least once a week or for many a teen last two years during his campaigns and they're they're very revealing of his military body and his political ability as well those you just and i'm talking with most one know about the latest book about the truth of the cure and i'd

rested the center either you're dealing here with a meeting here was a country at at a time when there are three colonial power of trying to establish so when the french were there the spanish were there in trying the movement and then the british invaded what's the magnum what polls was pulling three european powers well with them we're used to thinking of haiti today is the poorest place in western hemisphere but in those days it was the richest places in the western hemisphere was the first three lead big sur and coffee county and they were furnishing not only france but a lot of the rest of europe with those two commodities and the wealth that was being built out of this was enormous enormous and it was a build

very quickly so it was it was just a delicious applied for anybody's that they can get control of that was the jewel in the crown a local a colonial system and seventeen a man in sales and ninety one in five so the idea of innovators over there i decided himself he wanted to restore sugar production and coffee production and then offered reporters were capabilities with free labor and have france except that situation and thus secure permanent freedom and therefore the african students later on that unintelligible i think three of aig right freedom but not full independence from the french there comes a time though when when israel is threatening to the french i mean they got again and i mean women's freedom he wins the war as well

there was only one moment when the french revolution for all its rhetoric of liberty equality and brotherhood feel like they want to include a black slaves and that and that was during the terror in the end the seventy nine is rogues pierre and then their government they were that they were the ones who do actually ratified souther that's a proclamation ablan mr slavery ended over if you're a retailer there is they were sites you are to the economic consequences just didn't bother them or they didn't think about no there was not a winner much more but when they were overthrown there was considerable there are several conservative backlash as in the last and most powerful one was the year grasping of power of napoleon bonaparte was a military leader he restore order and relieved everybody of

chaos that have become you know truly terrifying not only during the terror but afterwards and one cd came to power first under them so think of a consulate which was republican you might say in the roman manner but he was soon on his way to becoming an emperor summer were going back to an article system in france although one that was far more rule before and of course it and relieve some of the liberty but not without considerable difficulty i see saturn had good information from france is watching these developments was extraordinary interest is to all the signs had been set by salt n x

with his consent an agreement enthusiasm even at least in words to france to be educated and of course are also hostages and so i had an agency tried when appointed to power to get them out that didn't work he tried very hard to persuade the french government that they did not want to restore slavery in sonoma and that they didn't need to restore slavery sentiment of the colony could function for them economically as it had before under his leadership and with free labor and he had advocates fred savage is in france a new sentiment very well you can argue that point on his behalf and appalling considered it very seriously and has no more as he describes for extra gas and for well the first thing he

says is no one of floated him a sex ahmed was trying to retire at by military force and restore slavery there has set of accepted two cents for out for uncovering the coming through here and then of course if he had done that louisiana was so french concession it so a richer it built a very effective army of twenty thousand man and that force using semi as a staging area to louisiana can adopt negative come to nashville before was that time just flew by how to be a cotton crop that let him get that well there was an invasion and he fought very rapidly very bright was a brilliant campaign on both sides it was led by napoleon's best troops the veterans of the european bison they were really get so it was a shock for pretty

set for the blackberry nevertheless they performed well and they fought they fought to the huge barrels a day and that left both sides with crippling loss is they fought to a draw really the french were so decimated they can really continue to campaign but for wants to sell a richer didn't really know that and that his army unit was severely better to me la sala surgery and in mind and he was at risk of being captured i think when you decide to come to terms with a story made of trees and the trees was hilarious and what it would do what he said said they agreed to say well this is all been six weeks of fighting with thousands of people feel is just a result of a kind of miscommunication and in fact we all serve the same government and our soldiers in the same army and he accepted the authority of a jet engine to clear and then retired but all this officer katherine remain in the french army

that was the situation very unstable for the french they lured him into a situation where they were able to arrest them and i think the reason he stuck his head in a trap this is the sort of forest a large french forces being infiltrated into the area where he was retired and he said they're probably going to try to him by force in the the last letters are about him trying to negotiate a withdrawal of those troops were the general said well yeah we can do that if you come out i mean it says supplies world and you out then there's the other theory that it was a deliberate act of martyrdom much as i feel it is so as a little too self interested to the like those are like the tucson you know so very well be eat it work out why that's our play and when he was arrested he stood on the deck of a ship i think i'm set in overthrowing me think you've caught the ritz is true that if you really think you've cut down the tree of liberty valence bring back from its roots which are

numerous and b and that was a great resonant want for centuries and that's what happened and indeed what he had done as ravel and revelers most populous to the point that they do not need leaders anymore they're always be new leaders it was like here's a harder any that city didn't i don't think he wanted to make that sacrifice but he knew it would work if it started for him it's great to have you back well thank you thank all of you for watching and dancing are for a word on words keep reading further