However, even as the freedmen adapt to liberty with manifest “thrift and industry,” Harper’s more elite protagonists remain convinced of their need for shepherding.

154-155)Ī third observer is “delighted at the thrift and industry” well in evidence in the postbellum South, as its people taste their first draft of freedom.

(In fact, Aunt Linda and husband John do manage to buy a plot of land from some friendly Jews.) (pp. An’ I sez, “John, you take dis money an’ git a nice place wid it.”’ We had neber seen so much money in our lives befo’, let alone hab it fer ourselbes. I felt right set up an’ mighty big wen we counted all dat money. An’ I kep’ on a workin’ an’ a savin’ till my ole man got back from de war wid his wages and his bounty money. ‘When de war war ober an’ de sogers war still stopping’ yere, I made pies an’ cakes, sole em to de sogers, an’ jist made money han’ ober fist. As Harper narrates, “The lost cause went down in blood and tears, and on the brows of a ransomed people God poured the chrism of a new era, and they stood a race newly anointed with freedom.” (p.

It focuses on two protagonists of mixed race, the mother and daughter Marie and Iola Leroy, to illustrate the absurdity of American slavery: One moment, the two light-skinned women are paragons of gentility – with Iola going so far as to defend slavery at her Northern girls’ school – the next moment, they are slaves.Ĭovering the Civil War and emancipation, Iola Leroy is an inspiring story of liberation. Harper’s Iola Leroy is a portrait of slavery and its aftermath in mid-19 th century America.

Frances harper iola leroy