ISLAND QUEEN: Bringing Hidden Histories to Light
Season 2, Episode 7 Transcript
(Note: Also check out our lists, Books on Antiracism, Black History, and Black Liberation and Discover Books by Caribbean Authors, which you may purchase through The Lift Up’s shop on bookshop.org)
T: Happy Wednesday! I’m Tamara Crawford, here with Vina Orden, and this is The Lift Up Podcast — inviting you to discover empowering reads by marginalized writers. In this episode #7, we will discuss an engaging work of historical fiction, Island Queen by Vanessa Riley.
Island Queen, published in July 2021, tells the remarkable story of Dorothy Kirwan Thomas, born into slavery on the Caribbean island of Montserrat, who eventually buys the freedom of her mother and sisters and creates a vast wealth and status across multiple islands in the Caribbean and in Demerara, now a part of Guyana in South America. Her story is one of fierce determination, perseverance and survival, with the New York Times review noting, “Evocative and immersive, Riley’s narrative bears that weight with grace; discovering Dorothy’s story is a singular pleasure.” Indeed it is.
So, without further ado, let’s get right to it …
T: Hey Vina! How are you? Happy Black History Month here in the UK!
V: Hey, Tamara! Yes, happy Black History Month! So, I was lucky enough to get nosebleed seats to Fire Shut Up in My Bones at the Met Opera last night …
T: Wow!
V: I know! And for folks who don’t know, it’s the first production that the Met has staged by a Black composer, Terence Blanchard, and a Black librettist, Kasi Lemmons — which, you know, on one level is appalling since it’s 2021, and when you think about it, the opera was founded almost a century and a half ago! But overall, the mood was just joyous, you know. Everyone was there to celebrate these amazing Black musicians and artists, and it was hands-down the most diverse audience I’ve ever seen at the Met. And I just wanted to give a shout out to Met chorus member, Jonathan Tuzo, whom we knew way back when from high school musicals! It’s so great, and now he’s at the Met. So, good for you, Jon!
T: Congrats!
V: So, I’m actually realizing what a special month October is for The Lift Up, since not only is it Black History Month in the UK, it’s also Filipino American History Month (FAHM) here in the US! So we’ve posted a link to our most popular blog post, our FAHM reading list, on social media, and I just wanted to shout out a few listener comments that were left there …
The San Francisco poet Barbara Jane Reyes says, “This is a great, comprehensive list. Thank you!” The artist and scholar Marlo De Lara says, “Really enjoying your podcast.” And one of my favorite bookstagrammers (you can follow her @ricetwicethrice) says, “One of the best FAHM lists. I discover such great picks every time!” So, thank you Barbara, Marlo, and Alicia!
So definitely check it out — we’ll be posting about books we’re adding to our bookshop list throughout the month. And so with that, I think it’s time we talked about this amazing book we just read, Island Queen!
T: Wow, so amazing you got to see Fire Shut Up in My Bones at the Met Opera! I’m hoping I get a chance to view it when I make it back to New York City next month. It will be the first time I have gotten to come back in 2 years, so I’m looking forward to it and to seeing you!
V: I know — the grand reunion!
T: I know, right? So, October is indeed a special month for us between the US and the UK. So, happy Filipino American History Month in the US! And how amazing to get such great feedback on the reading list! For our listeners here in the UK, we haven’t forgotten about you. We also have a list of books for Black History Month, and we’ll add it to the transcript on our blog post for your reference.
V: Definitely!
So yes, Island Queen! Massive, massive, huge thank you to Vanessa Riley for bringing Dorothy Kirwan Thomas’ story to life. It was so emotional for me reading this novel, especially as a West Indian woman — I was wondering where was this history when I was growing up? Perhaps it would have had an influence on me to have learned her story, and stories of other women like her, like Susannah Ostrehan, and many others across the Caribbean. Of how she enterprises her manumission and that of her family, and built an empire. And for those of you who don’t know — manumission is the act of enfranchisement, or in other words, freeing of slaves by their owners. The cost and rules behind manumission varied across all countries and colonies that had slaves. And particularly in the Caribbean, the rules and costs differed across the various islands. I think Barbados had probably the strictest and most changing rules from what I read, but anyway I digress. Anyway, how amazing that this novel has now been optioned by Julie Anne Robinson of Bridgerton to develop for television with Adjoa Andoh, also of Bridgerton, attached to executive produce! I can’t wait for this story to reach even farther and pique additional interest into this history.
V: I know! The whole time, I was picturing Adjoa Andoh in my mind while I was reading this book (because I have watched Bridgerton, I have to admit)! And I am really, really excited about this TV adaption, especially knowing that it sounds like the right people are behind it. I remember telling you, when we were thinking of a title for this episode, that it really is unbelievable that we don’t know Dorothy Kirwan Thomas’ story. I mean, she was a real-life woman who, like you said, managed to free herself and her family from enslavement; then she become a transnational entrepreneur and one of the richest people in the Caribbean; and then the other thing was, she actually successfully overturned this very unjust colonial tax specifically targeting Black women entrepreneurs by lobbying the freaking Secretary of War and the Colonies in London … and this was in 1824!
T: Yup!
V: And I just love that description of her coming up to the War Office in her carriage pulled by six horses or something ridiculous …
T: Dressed like royalty …
V: For sure — Island Queen, indeed! And so, Vanessa Riley mentions that her will is archived in the UK — so she really was recognized as someone important. But, as we know from so many of the books we’ve read on this podcast — from Insurrecto to There There to Red at the Bone to Potiki to The Mermaid of Black Conch — history isn’t objective and so much erasure happens, especially the history of women of color. Part of it is that history relies so much on “historiography,” so only studying the written records of the time. For instance, Dorothy was a contemporary of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. And I actually think her “against all odds” story is so much more compelling and arguably as important as those men. But she was functionally illiterate; on the other hand, they were prolific “men of letters.” So, the American Revolution makes the history books, but the story of 18th-century Black women entrepreneurs in the Caribbean doesn’t.
And I just thought it was so fascinating to learn about Riley’s journey in writing this book. I mean, it took her 10 years to piece together Dorothy’s story from things like her will, the birth records of her children, deeds of sale, and ship manifests, which showed that she really was a transnational businesswoman, like you said, shuttling between Montserrat, Dominica, Granada, Demerara, and even England and Scotland. But Riley had to comb through media reports, including those of one of Dorothy’s lovers, Prince William Henry (who became King William IV of England), to find these secondhand accounts of her.
Again, like many of the fiction authors or poets we’ve read on this podcast, without being too heavy-handed, Riley gives us a sense of the history of so many things — Dutch, French, Spanish, British, one might say Catholic and Anglican colonial history of the Caribbean; the sugar and the slave trade; and all these revolts led by enslaved people throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. I’m just really glad Riley includes a bibliography at the end of her novel, since this history that, I mean she gets into, but it really is just skimming over a lot of history — it just makes you want to learn more. And I already can’t wait for Riley’s next novel, which I believe is coming out next year, Sister Mother Warrior, which tells the story of the women in the Haitian Revolution, which was the largest and most successful rebellion by enslaved peoples in the Western hemisphere.
T: Indeed. Just going back to Dorothy’s will, it is housed at The National Archives in Richmond, and it’s viewable in digital format. So, I went and had a look at it, and it’s amazing to see how much she took care of her children, her grandchildren, and her godchildren in her will. And it’s also interesting how in the first paragraph of her will she bequeaths “to the poor of the Colony the sum of twenty two guilders.” Which is, I guess, roughly £183 today or approximately €214 today based on various calculators online. But I agree that the fact that her will exists, with executors, and has been amended three times — it definitely gives you a view that she was indeed important within society. And it reminds me of a part of the novel when soldiers started coming back to Dominica, and her mother starts to worry about their increasing presence:
Mamai stared forward as the redcoats passed.
“I’m not going to fret about them. I have our papers. We are free.”
“Dolly, you think men with guns will take the time to read?”
“Then I’ll have to become more important, powerful enough they’ll know me.”
And that’s what she did! She became so important that everyone knew who she was, that she was drawn in newspapers, talked about in society, that she could make connections on her own accord and wield influence, and it’s amazing to see how this plays out in the novel.
So I, too, am grateful for the bibliography that Riley had provided at the end, as well as her own explanatory notes. I really urge anyone reading this book not to skip over them, as it helps having that insight accompany an historical novel like this. And I’m very interested in learning more about this history across the Caribbean, so I’ll be lining up for Sister Mother Warrior as well! Speaking of rebellions, it got me thinking about the Fédon rebellion and how I never knew about that, but also that there were at least 12 large rebellions or acts of resistance that we know about from 1675 to 1831 across the Caribbean. And thanks to material provided by AntiSlavery International, I’ll get to start learning a little bit more about them.
And there’s so much to explore in this novel — love, loss, trauma, defiance, perseverance, family, entrepreneurship, legacy, colour and class privilege, guilt, pride, but the heart of it for me was survival and that sheer determination derived from the will to survive.
V: For sure. I mean, there was so much packed into this book, and like you said, the way Dorothy was able to connect with people as equals was also really remarkable. I mean, she never shied away from her blackness the way her husband John Coseveldt Cells did, but even as a light-skinned Creole man, he never came close to Dorothy’s wealth, power, or influence.
One relationship that I did find fascinating was with Prince William Henry (who, as I mentioned, later in history becomes king). So, after Riley finds this clue of Miss Lambe in Jane Austen, she finds a similar clue in this [Gillray] cartoon that depicts the Prince’s affair with a “handsome mulatto girl” on the ship Andromeda. And so this woman, of course, turns out to be Dorothy. And Riley says, “The cartoon is remarkable in the fact that this woman of color is drawn to be beautiful and loving, not subservient or garish as Gillray had done to other women with dark skin.”
I thought it was interesting that the section of the novel titled, My Choice, starts with a scene on the Andromeda (the ship). I’m just going to read a bit from this section:
I came for adventure and escaped with the man who returned for me, the white prince who was captivated by black me. William saw me as strong, a challenge. I liked that …
“Being here is my choice [Dorothy says]. I like that you are gentle and respect me.”
His eyes held a shine like his silver buttons. He could be the stars I loved, the ones I always sought from my window …
Yet, in William’s sidelong look, I remember the dangers of a man wanting me and the joy of wanting them, too.
So, Dorothy chooses to sail to England with William, but she also chooses not to stay with him as a concubine and instead keeps working to realize her dreams. She and the Prince meet again two decades later, when she’s, of course, this amazingly wealthy woman. And the change in William, who basically returned to London “society” and embraced his position in it, is really striking.
So as background, in real life, 10 years after his last encounter with Dorothy, Prince William gave a speech against abolition, which led to the defeat of the Slave Trade Limitation Bill. In the novel, Dorothy wonders:
… if I’d stayed in London, would William and I be together? Would I have guided him to the right side of things, like the support of abolition? …
[Dorothy tells the Prince] “I never said a word of my enslavement and its evil, how I nearly died or the deaths I witnessed. I hid the truth deeply within me. It only leaked in my nightmares.”
With his pinkie, he wiped a tear from my cheek. “Was it that bad? Look at you. Successful, still beautiful, still with eyes of fire and sunshine.”
“By not saying or sharing my story, I let you think enslavement was tolerable. It’s not. It’s murderous. I fought every day hoping to be freed.”
He touched my shoulders. “… I spent time in the West Indies. I saw slaves singing and dancing in the field. It couldn’t all be horrible …”
Then Dorothy says, and these lines are just so powerful:
Broken glass still sparkles when the light hits it. It might even look like diamonds or chandeliers’ jewels. It’s still ruined and in need of repair. Time will fix it, if you live free.
And I think Riley makes such important points here about telling these stories, especially given the recent climate that we’re in, where there are concerted efforts to keep certain stories buried and forgotten. For instance, I came across — because it was Banned Books Week recently — and according to the American Library Association, the books that received the most challenges to libraries and schools here in the US in 2020 dealt with “racism, Black American history and diversity in the United States.” So, many of those seeking to ban these books — a lot of them are parents, I think 50 percent are parents — claim that they’re “polarizing,” or “activist,” or about “indoctrination” not education. But, you know, this whitewashing of history is what prevents us from recognizing the dignity of others who might be different from us and from having the empathy that’s critical to healing and moving forward together as a fully liberated society.
T: Indeed … Just going back to Dorothy’s relationships, I think love is one of the most complicated aspects of Dorothy’s story. We know she’s been raped by her brother Nicholas, that she had many lovers, one of which was Prince William Henry. And it’s interesting — as part of her survival, but her own self-discovery, she uses him, Prince William, to see the world, and had hoped that her connection to him would help her to use her influence with him to stop the injustices heaped upon free women in the Caribbean. But, as you noted, his viewpoint changed, and terribly so. I see this as a means of survival at the time as well. You know, giving herself the ability to use those connections not only for business purposes, but to see and experience the world in a way that wasn’t afforded to many Black women or freewomen of that time. And many times she would be invited to events of which she was the only Black freewoman in the room.
For me the strongest relationships to explore were those between her and John Coseveldt Cells, and her and Joseph Thomas, where the relationships were based on love but impacted by the circumstances of race, ambition, and trust. In the novel, Dorothy and Cells fall in love, but when this could potentially impact Cells’ standing in society, because of Dorothy being a Black slave, he walks away from their love and breaks her heart, noting his earlier belief that “Men with Black wives or concubines don’t gain power. Black doesn’t gain power. It’s a target …” And I might add, the whole point is that she proves him wrong and becomes more powerful than him, but it does have a huge impact on how she views men and relationships going forward. But what I found interesting was that she followed her own desires with these suitors, not allowing anyone to take anything from her she wasn’t willing to give. Then Joseph Thomas enters the picture and throughout the novel, we see him try so hard to win her love and trust, and there were a few moments between Thomas and Dolly that really touched me, and I’ll share one that doesn’t give too much of the story away. It’s when Thomas takes Dolly to buy back her grandmother from the slave owner, but because she stands up to him when he insults her, the slave-owner refuses to grant her freedom. She goes:
“I should’ve listened to you, Thomas. I couldn’t let him win … Runyan could kill her tonight or hurt my grandma bad, but my pride got in the way. I let her be enslaved another hour ’cause I couldn’t let the old massa win. I’m horrible and ashamed.”
He pulled me against his shoulder. My wet face burrowed into his neck, ducking into the folds of his linen shirt.
“Thomas, I poked at my brother. I couldn’t let him win. It’s my fault he hurt me and Kitty. My fault. I just couldn’t sit and take it.”
“That fool’s actions aren’t your fault.” He swept me deeper to his chest … “And don’t you ever take abuse or dim your light because of a fool. You’re remarkable. The rest of us are trying to catch up.”
V: Yeah, good luck with that!
T: And I know this is historical fiction, but I really wanted this scene between Thomas and Dolly to have occurred in real life — where she’s confiding in Thomas and letting her guard down, and he’s holding her up and standing by her side. It really made me want to root for the two of them. And throughout the novel, you can see Thomas really, really loved her, and Dolly made him work for her love. But in the story, I think she really realized how much she loved him too.
Having said that, I do think Cells was her true love, her first real love, and she couldn’t forgive him for how much he hurt her until later on when they were both older, and she realized how much he really knew her and supported her. She had to make it through all that hurt and distrust — and ensure he paid for it too — before she could let him back into her heart again.
And let’s not forget the complicated love story between her mother and her Irish father, Kirwan. We don’t get to find out more about her mother’s feelings until later in story, but it raises the complexity of the “concubine contract” between slaves and slave owners who take their female slaves as mistresses and sire children with them. It opens many questions, as many of those relationships would not have been consensual, but as we see, Dolly’s relationship with Cells was, as were the relationships she had onwards.
V: Yeah, there really are so many complexities that Riley engages with in this novel. So, you mention her Irish planter father who validated her beauty and intelligence as a young girl and taught her math, taught her numbers, but who, at the same time, didn’t defend Dorothy against his white son, the stepbrother who raped her and who tried to challenge her manumission. And we’ve talked about Cells who was so insecure about having black ancestry himself that he left Dorothy and took their light-skinned daughter Catharina away with him to London, thinking he and his white wife could rear her better.
You know, Dorothy had ten children and clearly relished being a mother, grandmother, and she was also a benefactress of schools for children of color in England and Scotland, but Riley also talks about her postpartum depression. And so in this really wonderful piece by Caribbean author Tiphanie Yanique in Historical Novels Review (which we’ll definitely link to in the transcript), Riley says that she “wanted to defeat the myth of the super-human Black woman; this mythical concept that we feel no pain, that we feel no grief or fear.”
Riley also talks about how precarious Dorothy’s position was, despite her wealth. She always carried her manumission papers with her, because without proof of being a free Black woman, she could always be re-enslaved. And so it makes you understand just how much was at stake in her fight against the unjust taxation of Black women entrepreneurs. I mean, how else was she going to take care of her family, especially after Joseph Thomas dies? As Riley explains in another interview with the Jacksonville Free Press:
If you’re a Black woman, and you are able to gain your freedom, your choices of how to make money are very limited. So for Dorothy to overcome this, and to become one of the wealthiest women in the West Indies, she brought her seat to the table. And unlike her peers, she’s always worried about losing that seat.
T: Yeah, that seat. So important, so important … You know what, I think that’s a good segue, as I don’t think we can talk about this novel without touching a bit on the nature of Dorothy’s businesses and the ownership of slaves by freemen and women in the Caribbean. In the novel, we understand that Dorothy starts to save for her and her family’s manumission by selling her mother’s quilted blankets in the market. Once she escapes Montserrat to Demerara with Cells, she learns housekeeping from Mrs. Randolph at The Hermitage, accounting from Mr. Foden, and starts to empower and employ other women as housekeepers, starting her own business. Given the fetishization of black women during these times, I’m not surprised that white soldiers would pay for sexual services from some of the housekeepers, but as Dorothy notes, she believed it was the decision of the woman to provide those extra services if they wanted to, and Dorothy links this to a form of freedom. She explains this later on in the book when she has a conversation with Jean-Joseph Fédon about her business:
“While I appreciate the things you’ve been able to accomplish, Miss Dolly, they shouldn’t have our women, and you shouldn’t provide them a means to get them.”
“Then that would be stupid.”
“That would be principled.”
“Again, stupid. You think that my not providing safe opportunities for my housekeepers will keep men from wanting them? I make sure my girls are paid to clean and cook in safety. If more is offered, it’s the woman’s choice. No one’s forcing anyone.”
“Ma’am, I mean no disrespect, but it’s distasteful … There are other ways to win and earn money.”
“Fédon, that’s what freedom is. The ability to do what we please to earn our bread. It surely must extend to women too.”
This is an interesting one for me, because I gather from the novel that Dorothy believed her housekeepers were safe and provided these services of their free will. But the skeptic in me is not convinced. I’m not convinced that behind four walls, women may not have been coerced to provide the service and keep quiet. And maybe it’s because I’m thinking with my [21st]-century brain, in that women today can still be held against their will in domestic abuse situations with inadequate support … So, I suppose this is one element of the novel where I appreciated the sentiment and notions of feminism, but I’m finding it hard to embrace it as possible, even as fiction.
So, when I think about slavery in the novel, it’s an interesting point to talk about black freemen and women owning slaves. I would like to think that this was part of the means of survival of the times and a way to provide better conditions than white owners were providing. But without doing much additional research for the present, I can only surmise that people at the time were not sure they would ever live to see true freedom and equality, that they would always be occupied and traded. So if you were free, then you tried to work the system to ensure better conditions, raise your wealth as a means to survive, and provide better for those you could protect. And as Riley notes, the Victorian world was indeed more diverse than we understand or are led to believe, with black and white people commingling in certain spaces, even though it was restrictive and tenuous. It’s a complex topic and conversation to dig into, but I appreciate that Riley brings it to light and gives us resources to help start us on the way to our own research of our histories.
Even still, I think Riley tries to get us to understand this particular issue of the day without settling on it too much — it gives the view that this was the modus operandi of the time. I read a review that stated it didn’t think Riley spent enough time on this point, but I disagree. I think she did, especially in the context of the story, and she did give us a view on how Dorothy felt about this. There was one part of the book where she has a conversation with Charlotte about owning slaves, and tries to explain her thoughts on this:
“Mama, you own slaves. Papa Cells owns slaves. How is it different? IS it different? You told me what you lived through, but you own scores of people who aren’t free.”
“I can’t stop enslavement. I can rail against it and protest it, but it doesn’t stop these cruel planters from buying slaves. Between me and the Entertainment Society, we women have more than enough money to buy every enslaved person in Demerara to keep them from abuse. Anytime I can buy a woman or a girl, I do. I know I’ve saved her.”
“Wish the world would change, Mama.”
“I wish it would, too. Miss Rebecca and I buy the enslaved when a plantation goes under. It’s all we can do until men change laws.”
And this makes me think that Dorothy was doing what she could in the confines of the laws and the times to give the enslaved means to earn money for their manumissions, earn skills and education, go to church if they so pleased (because there were times when slaves were barred from going to church), and exist within seemingly better conditions. But at the end of the day, it was still slavery, and Dorothy notes the guilt she carries for participating in the system:
“They couldn’t stop my rise. I gave penance with endowments to schools for free coloreds, but I could not deny that I had become what I hated: a slaver to best other slavers.”
V: It was so difficult, especially when you know what she’s been through. When you remember how she, in the plantation where she grew up, could look on one side of the plantation but not the other side where all the abuse was happening. So I’m glad that Riley and this fictional Dorothy wrestle with this. Before she and her family owned a plantation, like you said, Dorothy questioned how white men like her father and Celles justified their ownership of other people by distinguishing themselves as “good” planters. But later on when the Prince points out her hypocrisy in calling for abolition yet benefiting economically from enslavement, she gives the same excuse. She says she’s not proud of it, “but I figured if I own them, I’d make sure they were safe, had shoes, and paths to freedom,” just like you said.
And this gets even more complicated when we learn about the history of rebellions by all these enslaved peoples, and how there were a lot of really unsuccessful ones, and the book goes into this as well. And so, it seems like there were two choices — openly rebelling, which her son-in-law Fédon did, and what she was trying to do, like you said, within the bounds of the law. So it is very complicated, and obviously, we don’t know 100 percent how the real-life Dorothy could have felt about this.
But anyway, I know we’re getting to the end here, so I did just want to mention one more thing, which I thought was so interesting — that it really was Jane Austen’s unfinished last novel, Sanditon, which features this wealthy Creole heiress Miss Lambe, that started the quest that led Riley to Dorothy Kirwan Thomas. So, in her Author’s Note at the end of the book, which is definitely worth reading, Riley explains:
This character of color is the wealthiest person in the book. Upper-crust suitors (white suitors) are scheming to marry her, which is counter to the prevailing narrative that Blacks (Blackamoors) were not desirable, had no access to money, had no ability to socialize in the upper classes, and had little agency as they were either slaves or lowly servants.
As a person of color, a Black woman, a Georgian and Regency history student, and a girl of Trinidad and Tobago heritage, I felt found discovering Miss Lambe.
… Finding Dorothy Kirwan Thomas, the women of the Entertainment Society, and so many other Black women who had agency and access to all levels of power has restored my soul.
Now I possess two truths. One: Jane Austen was a progressive author. Two: The narratives of the eighteenth and nineteenth century whitewashed the roles of my people — the adventurers, leaders, and rule breakers — which were occupied by women of color.
So, I haven’t read Austen since high school and just started reading Sanditon because it floored me that Austen would really write a book about a Black woman in the mid-19th century. I know it’s an unfinished novel, but wouldn’t it have been interesting if this was the Austen text our high school English teacher made us read instead of, or alongside, Pride and Prejudice?
T: Indeed …
V: Right? And I think it would have underscored the point she was trying to make back then about how we read Austen … That the romance — which unfortunately is how most film adaptations of Austen’s books are framed and how her books are often read — is really just cover for her critique of social, and, yes, political, issues of the day.
Again, I’m going to point to this really wonderful Tiphanie Yanique piece, because she makes a connection between what Austen and Riley do in their writing and also how a kind of erasure of their work happens in publishing — where their books are relegated as “women’s fiction” or “romance” rather than “literature.” I mean, you see the work that went into this book, so it really undervalues the rigor and sophistication of what these women were trying to do in their work. It’s kind of popular now, because it’s a Starz series, but Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series is kind of another example of how limiting these labels are that publishers and marketers slap on books to steer them to particular audiences.
And, you know, I have to admit, I fall prey to this kind of thinking too, but I can’t dispute the validity of romance and “pleasure activism,” and that these books — especially those written by women of color — are often trying to say something larger about history, society, ethics even, and politics. Anyway, it’s almost inevitable that I go off on a publishing tangent, but it seemed really important to bring up, especially in the context of this book and this author.
T: That is so interesting about the connection to Jane Austen and her works. I had no idea about Sanditon, and am really curious about it! I also want to note I love Tiphanie Yanique and was lucky to catch her at the 2021 Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival online in September, so I’ll have to take a look at her review of Island Queen.
It’s interesting you talk about erasure happening in publishing. One of the points I noted by Dr. Elizabeth Nunez in her opening address during the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival is where she says that not only does publishing have a responsibility, but so does the reader. She notes about us as readers, “The public has the power to silence or censure a writer if they do not purchase the writer’s work.” And given that publishing tends to “estimate” perceived readership, we have a responsibility to support writers and the stories we want to read by buying them, reading them, talking about them, and sharing them.
And to bring us back to the book for a second, I know we talk about how fearless and determined Dorothy was, but Riley also notes in her Author’s Note that Dorothy was not superhuman, as you mentioned earlier. She suffered and endured and felt guilt and remorse and pain, and it reminded me of a point in the book where Dorothy was on the Andromeda, and Kitty tried to coax her out of the room given all the gossip and hate Dorothy was receiving from the crew on board which made her want to hide, and Kitty says:
“Despite the gossip, Miss Dorothy, I kept lifting my head, kept showing up, and I definitely kept living … If I were you, I’d dress. Come up to the ball. Show up. Keep doing it.”
And I feel like this set the moment in the book where Dorothy notes that she cannot back down, that no matter what the society of the time has to say about her, she will find the strength to stand up for herself as part of fulfilling her bigger purpose, which we get a glimpse of while she is on the Andromeda, where in trying to respond to Prince William’s question about what she wants, what would make her the happiest, she thinks to herself:
If I spoke now — and told him that I, a woman who’d been enslaved, wanted to build fine things, things that would last, and show Blacks could achieve everything — laughter would make the heat in his eyes leave.
Even later on in the novel, she tells Julien Fédon, when she gives him a dressing down for looking down on her:
“I fault no one for doing what they must to survive. Now that I have money, I choose my company. I’ve always thought of myself as equal to any man, white or Black, never lesser.”
And it’s brilliant to imagine that is how she must have thought of herself during that period of time in order to ensure her success.
And I mentioned this to tie it back to the point around saying something larger about history, society, ethics, and politics. As these histories come to light, we get to start to have a more nuanced view of the time period and of our ancestry which is so important to have available to us, and publishing needs to support that.
V: Amen!
T: Preach! … So, there are so many other points we could talk about — the importance of family and building a legacy, all as means of survival; the long lasting vestiges of slavery passed onto generations — Mamai notes in one part of the novel that “The shackles stay on our soul. The dread is passed through the blood. I pray to God it doesn’t linger through the generations” (I mean, how interesting would it be to dive into that one!) — the importance of wealth and education as a means to elevate her family and their standing and solidify her legacy; color and class privilege, we talked on that a bit; finding joy through dancing or as they called it, “church,” as Kitty called it, “church”; working the system to influence it; and so on, and so on. But I want to end with one part of the novel that made me tear up and hit me right square in the feels, and it’s this line that Dorothy says:
With my damfo’s hand in mine, we get to it.
It’s time to rebel with everything in my soul.
No giving up.
No yielding.
We colored girls, we island girls, have a fight to win.
V: Woot!
T: I know — I’m already teared up. What a rallying cry this is!
V: Especially since I think she says this when she’s on her chariot …
T: Yeah, that line’s going to stick with me forever … So unfortunately, we’ve run out of time here. So to close out, we do want to let you all know what we’re reading next. We will be talking about Sabrina and Corina, a book of short stories by Kali Fajardo-Anstine. And you can purchase Sabrina and Corina, along with all the other books we’ve discussed on the show on bookshop.org/shop/theliftuppod. Feel free to send us questions or suggestions through our Instagram page, again @theliftuppod, and thanks so much again for listening to us here at The Lift Up Podcast.
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