A Politics of Truth and the Transnational Comm(unity) of Abolitionists: Michelle Cliff’s Free Enterprise

Abstract

If Paradise illustrates the politics of truth endemic to national history making, Michelle Cliff’s Free Enterprise (1993) exemplifies an aspect of fictional truth telling germane to the recent key paradigm shift in the field of American studies toward a new Americas studies. Recognizing the overlapping histories of colonialism within which the cultures of the Americas have been shaped, this hemispheric perspective questions modes of history that are delimited by the modern nation-state. Free Enterprise rewrites nationally delineated narratives of US history that intersect in the Civil War and black resistance to slavery throughout the Americas, with particular attention to women’s roles therein. The novel is set both during and after the Civil War, yet it recontextualizes the war not as a nationalist narrative that consolidated the United States but as a transnational slave revolt against imperialism in which black women, capital, and the discourse of “free enterprise” played a crucial role. The novel enacts this grand tale by telling the remarkable story of Mary Ellen Pleasant, the successful San Francisco businesswoman and passionate freedom fighter who allegedly financed John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry. Free Enterprise transforms the virtually unknown Pleasant into a New World abolitionist who played a major role in a landmark event (Harpers Ferry) that led to the Civil War.