Clotel

Clotel is the daughter of Currer, “a bright mulatto” (47), and Thomas Jefferson, whose house Currer kept when she hired herself out from her master John Graves. Currer, Clotel, and Clotel’s sister Althesa are sold following John Graves’s death. Clotel, age sixteen, is purchased by Horatio Green, a wealthy young man who had fallen in love with her at a party the two had attended. As she stands at the auction, Clotel is described as having “a complexion as white as most of those who were waiting with a wish to become her purchasers” (49). She has “long black wavy hair” (49) and stands with a “tall and graceful” form (49). She fetches a hefty price given her virtue, Christianity, and intelligence. When Horatio’s wife insists on selling Clotel she is treated cruelly by her mistress Mrs. French. As a lighter-skinned woman, she is also envied by the other slaves, who believe her to think herself superior. She eventually escapes slavery with William, another slave, by pretending she is his white master. When William and Clotel reach the Free States, Clotel returns to Virginia to find Mary, but fails to discover any news about her. She is arrested in her hotel room shortly after Nat Turner’s rebellion and brought to a “Negro pen” in Washington, DC, to await her return to New Orleans.