Of The Quest Of The Golden Fleece

Oct 2, 2001 - © W. Owen Brown

But the Brute said in his breast,
Till the mills I grind have ceased
The riches shall be dust of dust,
Dry ashes be the feast!

On the strong and cunning few,
Cynic favors I will strew;
I will stuff their maw with overplus
Until their spirit dies; from the patient
And the low I will take the joys they know;
They shall hunger after vanities and still
An-hungered go. Madness shall be on the people
Ghastly jealousies arise; Brother’s blood
Shall cry on brother up the dead and empty skies."
-- WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY

"Have you ever seen a cotton-field white with the harvest, --its golden fleece hovering about the black earth like a silvery cloud edged with dark green, its bold white signals waving like the foam of billows from Carolina to Texas across that Black and human sea?"

This is the question that Du Bois opens with in Of The Quest Of The Golden Fleece. A question, which sets the stage for his analysis of economic, political and racial climate that defined the deep south in the late 1800’s. Du Bois takes a look at one county in Georgia…where cotton was king and the driving force of an economic system that bound the souls of black folk as tightly as the shackles of slavery.

To understand how tightly economics, politics, and racism are interrelated you only have to understand the true inner workings of the Cotton Kingdom. Du Bois first explains to us the importance of cotton during the time of slavery and how the economic system was deeply effected by the lost of slave labor. As Du Bois had pointed out in earlier essays, failure to train the newly freed slaves in other industry, forces him to return to what he knows.

And what the Black man knew in the south was agriculture and farming. The cash crop at the end of the century was cotton. Now free from his bondage, the Black man sought his place in America. But what the Black man did not realize…nor those who removed him from his bondage… was that without any financial capital or vocational training… there was nowhere for him to go. So the Freedman returned to what he knew and sought his future on the farms. Like a lamb lead to slaughter, the Black man fell back into bondage.

Forced to borrow to purchase land, forced to borrow to purchase seed for planting, forced to borrow to purchase tools and livestock to work his farm, and finally forced to borrow to provide food and shelter for his family. And without any bargaining power, he is then forced to accept the terms of the racist storekeepers and bankers. Overcharged and cheated, the Black man began his spiraling decent into the deep abyss of tenant farming.
The copyright of the article Of The Quest Of The Golden Fleece in Writing from Harlem is owned by W. Owen Brown. Permission to republish Of The Quest Of The Golden Fleece in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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