Dessa Rose

Dessa Rose (1986), a historical novel by Sherley Anne Williams, is a slave narrative centering on the experiences of a fugitive slave. Separated into three sections, Dessa Rose chronicles a trio of distinct stages in the life of the titular character and her ongoing struggle for freedom.

In the first section of the novel, "The Darky," Dessa Rose sits in the basement of an Alabama sheriff's farm. She is shackled and does not speak a word. She has been arrested for her part in a slave revolt; she had been in a line of slaves chained together that had fought back against their captors, killing five white men and critically wounding the slave-trader. However, because she is pregnant, Dessa's life has been spared. At least until her child is born.

Adam Nehemiah, a white journalist researching slave rebellions, interviews Dessa, and details emerge about the brutal life she has been forced to lead. She had been enslaved on a plantation where she was in love with the gardener, a slave named Kaine who made her happy and eventually became the father of her unborn child. After Terrell Vaughan, the master of the planation, destroyed Kaine's treasured banjo, Kaine attacked him. Terrell killed Kaine in the ensuing fight. Dessa, in turn, attacked Vaughan, leading him to sell her to a slave-trader. This trader, Wilson, had put her in the coffle when the revolt occurred. She escaped amid the mayhem, but authorities recaptured her and put her on trial. Now, Dessa sits in jail, the love of her life is dead, her execution delayed only by virtue of the fact that she is going to have a baby. Two slaves from the coffle, Harker and Nathan, rescue Dessa from the cellar, and she is once again free. Adam, meanwhile, is outraged. Considering himself a self-styled expert on slave behavior, he can't believe he's been outsmarted. He vows to track Dessa down and to see her hanged.



In the second section, "The Wench," Dessa lives on a rural farm in the furthest reaches of northern Alabama. She has had her baby. The owner of the farm, Ruth Sutton, also known as Ms. Rufel, harbors fugitive slaves openly, under the guise of owning them. In reality, they live on the premises and work for pay. When Ruth says that her mammy, who recently passed away, loved her, Dessa becomes furious. From her perspective, Dessa finds it inconceivable that a slave could love their master. The intensity of Dessa's anger—and the logic of her argument—forces Ruth to reexamine the relationship she had with her mammy. When Ruth admits that she doesn't even know her mammy's given name, Dessa's point is underscored. In a flash, all Ruth thinks she knows about the world shatters. She questions her existing relationship with the fugitive slaves currently living on her property as well as her relationship with her late mammy, wondering about their motives and true feelings—and her own.

The final section of the book, "The Negress," finds Harker and Nathan hatching a plan to come up with enough money to fund the escape of the slaves on the farm. They try to convince Ruth, who is in dire financial straits, and Dessa to go along with the scheme. The plan would have Ruth sell the fugitive slaves back into slavery, they would all escape and meet at a prearranged rendezvous point, and move to another location, where Ruth would resell them into slavery. They would do this several times, racking up a nice supply of cash. The profit made from the sales would be split, with half going to Ruth and half going to the slaves after their final escape. Ruth and Dessa agree to the plan.

As they go from county to county with Dessa posing as Ruth's personal maid, the two women grow closer. At one of their stops, Ruth is almost raped by a drunken white man; this event proves to be a moment of reckoning for Dessa. Suddenly, she realizes that white women, too, are vulnerable to predatory white men. Dessa helps Ruth fend off the drunk, preventing the rape. The two women bond over the victory.



The moneymaking scheme is successful, though they have a close call when Adam Nehemiah crosses their path and recognizes Dessa. He apprehends her and presents her to the local sheriff, explaining that she is a fugitive criminal. Ruth intervenes, and Adam's claim falls apart. Dessa is eventually set free.

Dessa, Ruth, Harker, Nathan, and three other former slaves make their way toward the West. Dessa finally fully accepts Ruth as an ally and friend. The group arrives in Council Bluffs, Iowa, where they split the money they've made from their scheme. Ruth leaves them for the Northeast; she will never return to the South. The rest of the group separates to the North and West, and in the book's final chapters, Dessa Rose, at last, finds the freedom she has spent all her life seeking.