In 2004, Maurice Carlos Ruffin was a company lawyer in New Orleans and on his lunch break, he was searching through historical archives within the French Quarter. During one among these visits, he learned that the Confederacy was struggling to defend New Orleans, then an industrial power and the most important city within the South. The discovery surprised Ruffin.
“I thought, ‘Why would they give up like that?’” said Ruffin, now a fiction author and professor of creative writing at Louisiana State University, who has published his third book: “American daughters,” last month.
Ruffin used his imagination and his own family narratives to fill within the gaps that the story left unsatisfactory. He speculated in regards to the resistance the Confederates might need faced that prevented them from constructing a stronghold in New Orleans. What if enslaved women had played a key role on this rebel? What if these women, forced to work within the French Quarter, steal money, poison food, or free horses with a view to thwart the aspirations of their slaves?
“That type of resistance really made it difficult for them to be effective warriors,” Ruffin said.
This idea became the guts of “The American Daughters,” which follows a mother-daughter duo in 1860s New Orleans and a society of enslaved and free women of color who served as spies, the titular “daughters,” sabotaging the Confederacy and playing up its own dignity . American Daughters is Ruffin’s first work of historical fiction, but his entire writing – he published his first novel in 2021, and a group of short stories last 12 months – The motion takes place in his hometown, New Orleans.
Ruffin will talk in regards to the novel and the importance of writing culturally significant stories during two panels on Saturday (March 16) at New Orleans Book Festival. Verite News previously sat down with Ruffin to speak about his approach to writing about slavery and why he writes about New Orleans.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
True: In your acknowledgments you mentioned that the story is predicated on family narratives. What points of the novel are rooted in your family history?
Ruffin: Many of the themes of the family narrative are things I learned from my grandmother and mother. For example, my grandmother belonged to trade unions. Both my grandmother and mother were involved with The Eastern Star, which is a form of civil society group that helps and supports people. Listening to them tell stories about my grandmother boarding a train and going to Washington, D.C. to satisfy President Lyndon B. Johnson face-to-face – that form of story of their direct involvement in activism I find very inspiring.
True: How did it feel to assume, but in addition fictionalize, certain points of your family history as full, complex and flawed characters?
Ruffin: The novel is loosely based on real events. So what I did was I took the things I learned from the documents, and then I took the personalities of my ancestors that I knew directly, and I just imagined what it will have been like if my grandmother had lived within the nineteenth century. How would she behave? What would she say? What would she do? What were her friends like? That type of thing. So for me it was an exquisite experiment of the imagination, bringing back someone who isn’t any longer here and seeing him in all his glory.
True: Can you give an example of a document and an individual you had in mind for this story?
Ruffin: For example, there are several exhibits within the book. One of the exhibits is a slave sale letter, or slave bulletin, announcing that there have been people to be sold. You see the names, you see the age and you see their specialization, for instance this person is nice at cooking, this person is nice at doing hair or he’s a faithful servant, they often say but you then realize that these are real people.
There are so many things in regards to the two principal characters, Sanite and Ady, that I desired to bring them out for people to see for themselves. I didn’t want it to be a story about similar trauma and degradation. I need it to be a story about what are they like with one another? What love does a mother show to her daughter and vice versa? And that is what I saw with my mother and her mother, watching them interact through the years.
True: The epilogue ends within the twenty second century and discusses the historical accuracy of Ada’s journals and novels written by her ancestors. Why end this story almost 150 years into the longer term?
Ruffin: This is a method that some authors will use when you would like to give a broader perspective. I got this concept from The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, which is a book I really like. And it’s in regards to the resistance of those women on this terrible society of the longer term. And then, in the longer term, people will speak about them and some historical figures.
As for my book, I find it very interesting because I do know that plenty of the stories which have recently come to light in regards to the work of individuals like Harriet Tubman and others have type of been buried for over 100 years. So for those who asked, I do not know, seventy years ago, “Hey, did Harriet Tubman do anything cool?” People will say, “Harriet Tubman, she was just an enslaved lady.” But today we all know that Harriet Tubman was a one that worked for the federal government, was a spy in the military, and received a pension for going into dangerous territory and freeing people. So I assume there are a lot of hidden and unsaid stories. By putting the epilogue there, I form of force the reader to say, “Oh, there’s so rather more here that I didn’t consider. And it could take me some time to grasp what this whole story means.
True: The novel clearly documents the brutality of slavery – physical and sexual violence – however the principal themes are black resistance and creativity. Can you talk more about the way you considered showing the resistance while also documenting the horrors of slavery?
Ruffin: One of the principal decisions I made was to focus the camera on women, especially Black women – Sanite, who’s the mother of Ada, who’s the principal character, and Ada’s closest friends, Lenore, and Alabama. In doing so, I made a conscious decision to indicate as little as possible to the slave owners. So one among the principal people is Du Marche. You know, scary quotes. I believe in plenty of other stories he would have had plenty of screen time, so to talk, and you might see him talking and planning and stuff like that. I wasn’t serious about showing things like that. If these women were real, what would they prefer to see? They wouldn’t prefer to witness violence or ill-treatment. They would love to see the interactions that ladies have with one another and show how much they care about one another.
True: In the book, you mentioned any plantation with the addition “also known as a slave labor camp.” Can you speak about why you made this decision and stuck to it throughout the story?
Ruffin: There is a lot injustice on the earth and I believe sometimes we grow to be numb to it. And in relation to something like “plantations,” because of flicks like “Gone With the Wind” or the proven fact that people still marry on plantations today, we expect of them as type of benevolent institutions which can be just very nice and architecturally interesting. And I need to be certain that that each time the word “plantation” comes up, almost each time, it’s like a speed bump. You think, “A plantation, but actually people were forced to work here against their will, for free, for as long as possible, until they were sold or died out.” By doing this, I force the reader to reckon with the very fact of this terrible thing that nobody would wish to be a component of.
True: In this story, New Orleans is nearly like a personality in itself. I’m wondering what the importance of the New Orleans setting is within the novel?
Ruffin: My work almost at all times takes place in New Orleans. And I do it since it is a novel place, each historically and today. It’s such a pleasure to give you the chance to jot down about my hometown in a way I’ve never seen before. Many great writers lived there, but they were often outsiders writing from an outsider’s perspective. Whether it was de Tocqueville within the nineteenth century or Tennessee Williams, they did a superb job. But for me, as a one that was born and raised there and who simply desires to see my family and the community I come from on the web site – that is an interesting experiment for me.
I believe of other writers like Faulkner, who principally invented his own little county to inform his stories. Toni Morrison has often told her stories and her fictionalized Ohio, so for me it’s like my version of New Orleans where individuals who know me or who’re a part of my community say, “Oh, this is us” for the primary time. It’s a joyful experience to give you the chance to showcase these stories, a lot in order that even outsiders can say, “Oh, I’ve never seen anything like this before, and I’m glad I can experience an outsider’s view of the city for a change.”
