Clotel · Chapter
The Arrest explained
Clotel returns to Richmond in disguise to find her daughter Mary, but a slave insurrection led by Nat Turner has made authorities suspicious of strangers.
What happens
Clotel returns to Richmond in disguise to find her daughter Mary, but a slave insurrection led by Nat Turner has made authorities suspicious of strangers. After three days, she is discovered and arrested as a fugitive slave, imprisoned to await return to her owner.
Themes in this chapter
Heroism and Resistance
Clotel risks her freedom to rescue her daughter, and the chapter details the armed resistance of slaves under Nat Turner and Picquilo.
Dehumanization and Commodification
Clotel is arrested as property, advertised with a reward, and imprisoned to await her master's orders; the massacre of slaves leaves their bodies unburied.
Characters to notice
- Clotel
Returns to Richmond disguised as a gentleman to find her daughter Mary; arrested as a fugitive slave and imprisoned.
- Nat Turner
Leader of the slave insurrection in Virginia; described as a preacher, eloquent, respected by whites, loved by negroes.
- Picquilo
A runaway slave from Africa living in the Dismal Swamp; joins the insurrection, described as fierce and savage.
Key passages
“The imperturbable calm and entire forgetfulness of self which induced Clotel to visit a place from which she could scarcely hope to escape, to attempt the rescue of a beloved child, demonstrate that overwillingness of woman to carry out the promptings of the finer feelings of her heart.”
Clotel's selfless courage in returning to a dangerous place to save her child shows woman's natural inclination to follow her deepest emotions.
Highlights Clotel's maternal heroism and the theme of resistance.
“Thus carnage was added to carnage, and the blood of the whites flowed to avenge the blood of the blacks. These were the ravages of slavery.”
Violence escalated on both sides as whites killed blacks and blacks killed whites, all as a brutal consequence of slavery.
Condemns the cycle of violence caused by the institution of slavery.