Outlander 4.2: Slavery

Outlander 4.2 last night, another strong episode, continued the blending of opposites that is the essence of the series.

This time it was Jamie's aunt's plantation in South Carolina. It's a beautiful, bucolic paradise on first glance.  But on closer inspection, it thrives on the backs of hundreds of slaves.  Jamie's aunt is kind - meaning, she treats her slaves well.  Claire with her future sensibilities is horrified.  Jamie's not too happy either.  And before the hour is over, we're treated to an in-depth, sensitive tour of the law and practice of slavery in pre-Revolutionary War America.

It's a wrenching picture - which, again, has relevance to this very day, where the results of the voting for Georgia governor, with an African-American woman running against a white state official, are being hotly contested.  Yes, we as a nation have made enormous progress since 1767.  But we still have a ways to go.

One of the things I'm already liking about this fourth season of Outlander is that, so far, each episode features a different venue for our band of travelers.   There's a whole continent ahead to explore, if the narrative goes that way, and it will be fun to see where it goes.

Boston, for example, would be an especially neat place to visit in 1767.  Claire could leave a hidden message for her daughter to discover in the 1960s.  (Leaving a message for Claire herself to discover in the 1940s would be paradoxical, unless Claire for whatever reason never sees it.  If she had, then, well ... she would have seen it already, earlier in her life in the 1940s, if you get the picture.)

And I'll be back here next week with more.

See also Outlander 4.1: The American Dream

And see also Outlander Season 3 Debut: A Tale of Two Times and Places ...Outlander 3.2: Whole Lot of Loving, But ... Outlander 3.3: Free and Sad ... Outlander 3.4: Love Me Tender and Dylan ... Outlander 3.5: The 1960s and the Past ... Outlander 3.6: Reunion ... Outlander 3.7: The Other Wife ... Outlander 3.8: Pirates! ... Outlander 3.9: The Seas ...Outlander 3.10: Typhoid Story ... Outlander 3.11: Claire Crusoe ...Outlander 3.12: Geillis and Benjamin Button ... Outlander 3.13: Triple Ending

And see also Outlander 2.1: Split Hour ... Outlander 2.2: The King and the Forest ... Outlander 2.3: Mother and Dr. Dog ... Outlander 2.5: The Unappreciated Paradox ... Outlander 2.6: The Duel and the Offspring ...Outlander 2.7: Further into the Future ... Outlander 2.8: The Conversation ... Outlander 2.9: Flashbacks of the Future ... Outlander 2.10: One True Prediction and Counting ... Outlander 2.11: London Not Falling ... Outlander 2.12: Stubborn Fate and Scotland On and Off Screen ... Outlander Season 2 Finale: Decades

And see also Outlander 1.1-3: The Hope of Time Travel ... Outlander 1.6:  Outstanding ... Outlander 1.7: Tender Intertemporal Polygamy ...Outlander 1.8: The Other Side ... Outlander 1.9: Spanking Good ... Outlander 1.10: A Glimmer of Paradox ... Outlander 1.11: Vaccination and Time Travel ... Outlander 1.12: Black Jack's Progeny ...Outlander 1.13: Mother's Day ... Outlander 1.14: All That Jazz ... Outlander Season 1 Finale: Let's Change History

 

It all started in the hot summer of 1960, when Marilyn Monroe walked off the set of The Misfits and began to hear a haunting song in her head, "Goodbye Norma Jean" ...

Turn 1.8: Nice, Instructive Turn

Turn 1.8 took a nice turn on Sunday night, with Abe and Anna finally together, without interruption.

Also revealed is the guilt Abe has been carrying for the death of his brother, important to know in any case, and the catalyst for Abe and Anna taking their clothes off, at last.   There was also a fine poetry in the way this was presented in the episode, which starts with the two dressing, separately, and concludes with the two undressing, together.

Meanwhile, this was also a good Robert Rogers episode.   He's clearly the best that the British have against the Americans, because he's more than willing to break the rules in pursuit of American revolutionary quarry.   But when he fires into a prisoner exchange, that's going too far for the Red Coats, who now want him dead almost as much as do the Americans.   Britannia is all about the rule of law, hence the Brit opposition to American independence, as well a wily trapper like Rogers who puts victory above the law.

In that sense, Rogers is a very modern combatant, and one could even make a connection between his way of conducting war and the drone strikes of today.  Rogers' team is also worthy of note - a Native American and an African American.  It's historically accurate that some of both groups tended to fight on the side of the British, which at first seems to clash with our American sense of history, and how we have always been a country that values freedom above all else.   So why, then, did anyone from two oppressed groups fight on the side of the Brits?   The answer is that neither group was free in Revolutionary America.   The "all men are created equal" in our Declaration of Independence not only applied literally to men - not women - but also excluded slaves, Native Americans, and, for that matter, any white man who was poor (not a land holder or a very wealthy merchant).  Small wonder, then, that both groups tended to be more kindly disposed to the Crown than our Continental Congress.

As Turn has already explored, Britain was well on the way to abolishing slavery by the time of the American Revolution.   Not that the Brits were above using African Americans for their own lofty ends, but there's no doubt that Britain was well ahead of American in ending slavery, and indeed did so throughout most of the Empire in 1833, or 30 years before our own Emancipation Proclamation.

Turn can be a little slow moving at times, but episode 1.8 was just fine, and the series continues as one of the most historically intelligent on television.

See also: Turn Premiere: Good Historical Drama in Revolutionary New York ... Turn 1.5: Shot in the Arm

 
a little earlier history in ... The Plot to Save Socrates