Mandingo (novel)

Kyle Elihu Onstott was born on January 12, 1887, in Du Quoin, Illinois.[1] Although he never had a steady job, Onstott was from an affluent family, and, living with his widowed mother in California in the early 1900s, was able to pursue his main hobby, that of a dog breeder and judge in regional dog shows, in lieu of any professional calling.

Onstott was a lifelong bachelor, but at age 40, he chose to adopt a 23-year-old college student, Philip, who had lost his own parents. Philip eventually married a woman named Vicky and the two remained close to Onstott for the rest of his life. Onstott dedicated Mandingo to Philip and Vicky.[2]

Onstott began writing Mandingo when he was 65 years old. He based some of the events in the novel on "bizarre legends" he heard while growing up: tales of slave breeding and sadistic abuse of slaves. Having collaborated with his adopted son on a book about dog breeding, he decided to write a book that would make him rich. "Utilizing his [adopted] son's anthropology research on West Africa, he handwrote Mandingo and his son served as editor. Denlinger's, a small Virginia publisher, released it and it became a national sensation."[3] He was invited to write an article for True: The Man's Magazine in 1959 about the horrors of slavery.[4]

Mandingo was first published in 1957 in hardcover. It was 659 pages long and sold around 2.7 million copies. Subsequent paperback editions whittled the novel down to 423 pages.[5] The novel sold a total of 5 million copies in the United States.[6]

Mandingo is the only novel of the Falconhurst series that Onstott wrote, but he edited the next three novels in the series. All of the sequels were penned by either Lance Horner or Henry Whittington (Ashley Carter).[7]

Mandingo takes place in 1832 on the fictional plantation Falconhurst, located close to Tombigbee River near Benson, Alabama. Warren Maxwell is the elderly and infirm owner of Falconhurst and he lives there with his 19-year-old son, Hammond. Falconhurst is a slave-breeding plantation where slaves are encouraged to mate and produce children ("suckers"). Because of the nature of the plantation, the slaves are well fed, not overworked, and rarely punished in a brutal manner. However, the slaves are treated as animals to be utilized as the Maxwells wish. Warren Maxwell, for example, sleeps with his feet against a naked slave to drain his rheumatism.

Although Hammond keeps a "bed-wench" for sexual satisfaction, his father wishes him to marry and produce a pure white heir. Hammond is skeptical and is not sexually attracted to white women. Despite his misgivings, he travels to his Cousin Beatrix's plantation, Crowfoot, and there meets his 16-year-old cousin, Blanche. He asks Blanche's father, Major Woodford, permission to marry her within four hours of meeting her. After receiving the Major's permission, Hammond and Charles Woodford, Blanche's brother, travel to the Coign plantation where Hammond purchases a "fightin' nigger", Ganymede (aka Mede), and a young, female slave named Ellen. Later, Hammond reveals his love for Ellen, despite his intentions to wed Blanche.

Back at Falconhurst, Hammond and Warren mate Mede, a pure Mandingo slave, with Big Pearl, another Mandingo slave. It turns out that Mede and Big Pearl are brother and sister, but no one shows concern over the incestuous act. Charles and Hammond take Mede to a bar to fight with other slaves. Hammond plans to use his winnings to buy a diamond ring for Blanche. When it is Mede's turn to fight, he easily beats the other slave, Cudjo, in 20 seconds and neither man is seriously injured. Mede is clearly an extremely strong and powerful man.

Hammond sets off with his "body nigger", Omega (Meg), to the Crowfoot plantation to wed Blanche. Once he arrives at Crowfoot, Hammond learns that Charles never returned to the plantation, taking with him $2,500 that Hammond loaned Major Woodford and the diamond ring for Blanche. Despite the confusion, the Major consents to let Blanche and Hammond marry. They do so that evening, with Dick Woodford (Blanche's brother, a preacher) performing the ceremony.

On their wedding night, Hammond leaves his and Blanche's room in the middle of the night. Hammond believes that Blanche is not a virgin. Although she denies having previous sex partners, it turns out that Blanche lost her virginity to her brother, Charles, at age 13. She does not reveal this fact to Hammond.

After a few months at Falconhurst, Blanche is bored and dissatisfied. She begins drinking heavily and is jealous of Hammond's continuing preference for his "bed wench", Ellen, who is now pregnant. Soon, Blanche is also pregnant.

Hammond and Warren take Mede to another slave fight, where Mede is nearly beaten by a stronger slave, Topaz, but ends up killing Topaz by biting through his jugular vein. Later, Hammond travels again, this time to Natchez, Mississippi, to sell a coffle of slaves. When Blanche reveals her fear that Hammond will sleep around with "white whores", Hammond bluntly states, "White ladies make me puke."[8]

While Hammond is away, Blanche calls Ellen to her room and whips her. Ellen miscarries and it is unclear whether her miscarriage is caused by the whipping.

While in Mississippi, Hammond sells one of his male slaves to a German woman, who obviously wants the slave for sex. When the other men in the group explain this to Hammond, he is physically repulsed and denies that a white woman would ever willingly sleep with a black slave.

Blanche has her baby, a girl, Sophy. Despite giving birth and Ellen's miscarriage, Blanche's jealousy of Ellen continues to grow. When Hammond travels to an estate auction and secretly takes Ellen along, Blanche becomes apoplectic. She orders Mede to come to her room and have sex with her. Before he leaves, she forcibly pierces Mede's ears with a pair of earrings Hammond gave her. This is a particularly poignant act of retaliation against Hammond because he bought an identical pair of earrings for Ellen.

Blanche becomes pregnant again and does not know if the baby is Mede's or Hammond's. She realizes it is too late to accuse Mede of rape. In the final chapter of the book she gives birth and the child is dark-skinned and looks like Mede. Blanche's mother, visiting Falconhurst, kills the baby by crushing its skull. When Hammond finds out, he calmly asks the doctor for some poison, mixes it in a hot toddy, and gives it to Blanche, killing her. He then boils water in a giant kettle and forces Mede to get in. When Mede resists, he uses a pitchfork to stab the slave to death and then orders the other slaves to keep the fire going, thus turning Mede into a soup. The novel ends with Hammond and Warren discussing Hammond's plans to leave Falconhurst and forge a new life out west.

Although Mandingo was a national and international best-seller, selling 5 million copies nationwide,[22] critical opinions about the novel were—and continue to be—mixed. While black novelist Richard Wright praised Mandingo as "a remarkable book based on slave period documents",[23] other critics have deemed the book sensationalist and offensive. Van Deburg writes that "None of the three contributors to the [Falconhurst] series could be considered knowledgeable about the black experience"[24] and argued that "The Falconhurst novels reveled in white sexual exploitation of black slaves."[25] Van Deburg's use of the word "reveled" suggests that the authors of the Falconhurst series wrote mainly to titillate the audience rather than to criticize the culture of American slavery. Seidel writes off the character of Blanche as a nymphomaniac without considering the character's complexities.[26] In a 1967 New York Times article about American books published in France, Jacques Cabau refers to Mandingo as "a sort of Uncle Sade's Cabin that reflects less on racism than on its readers' perversion."[27] Eliot Fremont-Smith, a New York Times critic, mocked the Falconhurst series by using them as a litmus test for other "bad" fiction: "I am compelled to name the absolute worst, most regurgitory new-and-advertised book that I've read in 1975, the one most deserving of the Kyle Onstott Memorial Award..."[28]

Such critical reactions show a disgust at the atrocities portrayed in Onstott's novel. However, Paul Talbot points out that some contemporary reviews accepted the novel as shocking, yet truthful. He quotes Earl Conrad of The Negro Press: "Mandingo has aroused in me a wild enthusiasm. It is just about the most sensational, yet the truest book I have ever read..."[29] He quotes John Henry Faulk, a TV humorist who praised Mandingo as "...one of the most compellingly powerful novels I have ever read."[30] Nearly all critics were quick to point out the "morbid, revolting, interesting, sadistic..."[31] nature of the content while also accepting Onstott's vision of the Antebellum South as accurate: "...it carries with it the power of absolute conviction, and this quality may demand that we revise our notions of American history, for it confounds us with the evils of our past."[32] It seems that whatever opinion critics had of Mandingo, they could not deny its emotional impact on readers and its challenge to the romanticization of the Antebellum South.

• Ryan, Tim A. (2008). Calls and Responses: The American Novel of Slavery since Gone with the Wind. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8071-3322-4.