From Trickster to Badman: The Black Folk Hero in Slavery and Freedom. - book reviews

African American Review, Spring, 1994 by Jeannie Thomas

As one might deduce from its title, From Trickster to Badman: The Black Folk Hero in Slavery and Freedom is of great interest for folklore scholars and history. It is also important reading for those who teach ethnic literature. Oral takes from many ethnic communities now commonly appear in survey texts, however, though an integral and historically fundamental part of the narrative tradition in America, they are often overlooked in the teaching of American literature. This seems due, in part, to their structure, and to the fact that the tales can seem flat, simplistic, illogical superstitious, or puzzling because the characters and plots cannot be wholly understood from within a Euramerican cultural framework.

For example, it has been common for someone without an understanding of the African animal trickster stories, and the social conditions in which these stories were told in America, to assume that such stories and their tellers revel in depictions of immorality and treachery - a view that can work to reinforce many of the most pernicious stereotypes about African Americans. It is Robert's ability to address the importance of the African and American historical and cultural contexts, and thus reveal sophisticated narrative strategies and meanings in the trickster tales, which makes his book so welcome. From Trickster to Badman effectively works to break down some of the barriers in understanding and interpreting oral African American narratives.

Following an introductory overview, four chapters detail specific types of folk-heroic expressions and the contexts in which they emerged. Roberts discusses trickster heroes in slavery from animal tricksters and their dupes, to John and Old Master); the conjurer as hero; spirituals as heroic statements, and the badman as an outlaw hero. Along the way, Roberts makes his readers rethink their notions of things like "superstitious" behavior, be demonstrates how things like conjuration - commonly understood within the negative category of superstition (folklorists generally prefer the phrase folk belief) - were also slaves' means of expressing power, humanity, and challenges to the white system. Slave support for and utilization of the conjurer's skill were not only manifestations of resistance to white values and the retention of African values, but they also served as means for dealing with conflict within the slave community without an overt display of hostility that could disrupt the group as well as bring the master's power and wrath upon it.

Following the chapter on conjuration, Roberts focuses on spirituals. He argues that even turning to Christianity did not obliterate the slaves' African-influenced tradition of either aggressive action or trickster-like behavior. He links the African heroic epic and the spiritual in his discussion of figures like Moses in the spiritual: "The life and deeds of Moses were the most reminiscent of those of African epic heroes: he was born under unusual circumstances, was exiled, and grew up away from his people, underwent went great and tests, and acquired the spiritual knowledge and power to affect his commmnity's destiny" (148). Noting that many of the major rebellions of the nineteenth century relied on biblical traditions to frame their appeals for followers, Roberts also links us religious conception of the epic hero with hero with African Americans' willingness to embrace Harriet Tubman as Moses. In concert with this brief discussion of Tubman, an exploration of gender in the construction and utilization of the black folk hero would be logical. Unfortunately, this important and deserving issue is not addressed in Roberts's book.

From Trickster to Badman concludes with a discussion of the badman as he is embodied in figures like Railroad Bill and Stackolee. According to Roberts, the badman reflects the ambiguous situations that African Americans faced after emancipation, particularly in terms of dealing with a law enforcement system geared toward the protection of white interests. The white law bad no interest in the physical well-being of black people and was often brutal in its treatment of African Americans. This brutality, coupled with the laws rare appearances in black communities (unless performing a duty), provided African Americans "with sufficient justification to envision behaviors which subverted the power of the law for black gain" (198). Hence, social restraints against certain kinds of law-breaking behaviors (like gambling) were relaxed. Enter the badman, who, while murderous and violent, is not primarily portrayed as a cold-blooded killer, according to Roberts. The depiction of the badman while often ambivalent, emphasizes justifiable retaliatory actions - a victim who responds to victimization with violence. (One has to wonder what connection Roberts might make between the 1992 L.A. Riots and the oral traditions discussed in his fifth chapter.) To support this stance, Roberts points to versions of the ballad of Stackolee that suggest he was victimized in gambling by the man he murdered.