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Psychoanalytic Perspectives
on the Shadow of the Parent

Psychoanalytic Perspectives on the Shadow of the Parent explores the

psychological challenges faced by the offspring of either famous or notorious
parents.
Beginning with parental legacies found in mythology and the Bible, the
book presents a series of case studies drawn from a range of narrative contexts,
selecting personalities drawn from history, politics, psychoanalysis and literature,
all viewed from an analytic perspective. The concluding section focuses on the
manifestation of this parental shadow within the field of fine art, as written by
artists themselves.
This is a lively and varied collection from a fascinating range of contributors. It
provides readers with a new understanding of family history, trauma and reckoning
screened through a psychoanalytic perspective, and will appeal to psychoanalysts,
psychotherapists, counsellors and anyone interested in the dynamics of the family.

Jonathan Burke is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist working in private practice

in the UK. He previously edited The Topic of Cancer: New Perspectives on the
Emotional Experience of Cancer (Karnac, 2013).
Psychoanalytic Perspectives
on the Shadow of the Parent

Mythology, History, Politics and Art

Edited by Jonathan Burke

First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 selection and editorial matter, Jonathan Burke; individual
chapters, the contributors
The right of Jonathan Burke to be identified as the author of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-32295-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-78220-547-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-45170-6 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman

by Apex CoVantage, LLC
To my parents, Jack and Marie Burke
Contents

About the editor and contributors x

Foreword xv
M A R G O T WA D D E L L
Preface: a hard act to follow xviii
J O N AT H A N B U RKE

Introduction 1
J O N AT H A N B U RKE

PART I
Perspectives 5

In the Bible 7
1 In the shadow of violence: Isaac and Abraham 9
S T E P H E N F R O SH

In Greek mythology and opera 21

2 Hard acts hard to follow: Sophocles, Hofmannsthal,
Strauss and Elektra 23
C H R I S TO P H E R WI NT L E

In Shakespeare 41
3 Under the shadow of silence: on speechless love in King Lear 43
S T E V E N G R O ARKE

4 “Madness, yet there’s method in it”: the shadow of

the doctor in Hamlet’s mirror 58
PA U L H E R I TA G E
viii Contents

PART II
‘I’-witness accounts 71

In psychoanalysis 73
5 ‘Derealization’: in the shadow of the son 75
FAY E C A R E Y

6 Her mother’s footsteps 93

M A R I O N B OWE R

7 A tragic inheritance: the irresolvable conflict for children

of perpetrators 105
C O L I N E C O VI NGTON

8 Making my way out of the shadow into the sun: a painful

confrontation with my past 127
M A RT I N M I L L E R

In socio-political life 143

9 Closed doors 145
S Y LV I A PA S K I N – WI T H CODA BY S ARA COL LIN S

10 Kafka: ‘parental superiority’ as the act that feels hard to follow 161
S T E V E N M E NDOZ A

In philosophy 177
11 Attachment and doubt in the work of Stanley Cavell 179
R O B B I E D U S CHI NS KY AND S E RE NA ME S S I NA

In religion and family life 193

12 The eye begins to see: personal reflections on a fragmented
father–son relationship, and other related matters 195
H O WA R D C OOP E R

Reflections in fine art 209

13 Shadow, colour, glass: the family I knew and the family
I never knew 211
A R D Y N H A LT E R
 Contents ix

14 Paddle your own canoe: negotiating the shadows 223

J A N E M C A D A M F RE UD

Index 243
About the editor and contributors

Jonathan Burke is an adult psychoanalytic psychotherapist who first trained in

social work and health care and later became a health planning consultant to
UK hospitals and ministries of health abroad. After managing the Cancer LIFE
Project at Enfield Disability Action, he trained as a psychoanalytic psychother-
apist. A member of the British Psychotherapy Foundation, he continues today
to see a wide range of patients in his private psychotherapy practice. He has
served as editor on The Topic of Cancer: New Perspectives on the Emotional
Experience of Cancer and on Psychoanalytic Perspectives on the Shadow of
the Parent: Mythology, History, Politics and Art.
Marion Bower is an adult psychotherapist. She was previously a consultant
social worker at the Tavistock Clinic. The books she has edited or co-edited
include The Emotional Needs of Young Children and Their Families; Thinking
under Fire; Addictive States of Mind; and What Social Workers Need to Know.
She is currently writing a biography of Joan Riviere and preparing an edited
book on sexual exploitation.
Faye Carey is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist with a background in the visual
arts. Her MA in Art Theory Goldsmiths (‘Comic Relief’) applies Freud’s theo-
ries of jokes to the development of humour in sculpture, and her doctoral thesis
in psychoanalytic studies at the University of Essex (‘Seeing Hearing’) con-
cerns the clinical value of the therapist’s capacity for visualisation (due to be
published by Routledge in 2018). In 1994, Faye qualified as a psychoanalytic
psychotherapist with the London Centre for Psychotherapy (LCP), today part
of the British Psychotherapy Foundation (BPF). She remains Chair of Training
for the LCP, and is Chair of Curriculum for the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
Association (PPA) of the BPF. She was appointed a Fellow of the BPF in 2014,
and teaches and writes on her chosen subjects.
Sara Collins is a training and supervising psychoanalyst with the British Psycho-
analytic Association and the British Psychotherapy Foundation. She is the cur-
rent Director of Training at the BPA, and a member of its Board. She has taught
widely on psychoanalytic and psychotherapy courses. Her published papers,
 About the editor and contributors xi

relating primarily to the analytic relationship, include ‘The Voice behind the
Couch: Whatever Happened to the Blank Screen?’ in Interpretive Voices –
Responding to Patients (Karnac, 2015) and ‘Why Reconstruct? Perspectives
on Reconstruction within the Transference’ in Transference and Countertrans-
ference: A Unifying Focus of Psychoanalysis (Karnac 2011). Her paper ‘On
Authenticity: The Question of Truth in Construction and Autobiography’ was
published in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis (IJPA) in 2011. Sara
was the keynote speaker at the first BPA international conference in 2017 on
psychic change, on the topic ‘Occasion for Change: Is There Such a Thing as
a Mutative Enactment?’ Her other interests include opera and psychoanalysis,
on which she has published papers in New Associations and on the IPA World
website. She works in private practice.
Howard Cooper is a rabbinic graduate of the Leo Baeck College and has a mas-
ter’s degree with distinction in creative writing and critical theory. He works as
a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and supervisor in private practice and is the
Director of Spiritual Development at Finchley Reform Synagogue, London. A
workshop leader, lecturer and writer exploring religious, Judaic, spiritual and
psychological themes, he is the editor of Soul Searching: Essays in Judaism
and Psychotherapy (SCM Press, 1988) and author of, amongst other works,
The Alphabet of Paradise: An A–Z of Spirituality for Everyday Life (Skylight
Paths, 2002).
Coline Covington is a Jungian analyst with a background in political science and
criminology. She is a Fellow of International Dialogue Initiative (IDI), a think
tank formed by Prof. Vamik Volkan, Lord Alderdice, and Dr Robi Friedman
to apply psychoanalytic concepts to understanding political conflict. Coline’s
publications include Terrorism and War: Unconscious Dynamics of Political
Violence (Karnac, 2002), Shrinking the News: Headline Stories on the Couch
(Karnac, 2014), Sabina Spielrein: Forgotten Pioneer of Psychoanalysis, 2nd
ed. (Routledge, 2015), and Everyday Evils: A Psychoanalytic View of Evil and
Morality (Routledge, 2016). Coline works in private practice in London.
Robbie Duschinsky is Head of the Applied Social Science Group in the Primary
Care Unit, Cambridge University. He is also Director of Studies in Sociol-
ogy at Sidney Sussex College. He is the co-author of Sustaining Social Work:
Between Power and Powerlessness, and presently holds a New Investigator
Award from the Wellcome Trust for a study of debates in attachment research.
Jane McAdam Freud was born in London and built her career as Jane McAdam
without reference to her renowned portrait painter father, Lucian Freud, and
her great-grandfather, the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. Work-
ing in various mediums, McAdam Freud’s main focus is sculpture and relief,
which she has exhibited globally. Her work continues to be acquired by several
major public collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British
Museum and Guildhall. Solo shows in the UK include the Ashmolean Museum
xii About the editor and contributors

in Oxford, Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, Hunterian Museum in Glasgow

and Freud Museum in London. International solo shows include the Contem-
porary Art Museum in Missouri, Museum Novojiínska in the Czech Republic
and the Sundaram Tagore Gallery in Los Angeles.
Stephen Frosh is Professor in the Department of Psychosocial Studies at Birk-
beck, University of London. He has a background in academic and clinical
psychology and was Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the Tavistock Clinic,
London, throughout the 1990s. He is the author of many books and papers on
psychosocial studies and on psychoanalysis, most recently Hauntings: Psycho-
analysis and Ghostly Transmissions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and Simply
Freud (New York: Simply Charly, 2017). He is a Fellow of the Academy of
Social Sciences, an Academic Associate of the British Psychoanalytical Soci-
ety, a Founding Member of the Association of Psychosocial Studies and an
Honorary Member of the Institute of Group Analysis.
Steven Groarke is Professor of Social Thought at the University of Roehampton
and a member of the British Psycho-analytical Society and the International
Psychoanalytical Association. He teaches at the Institute of Psychoanalysis in
London and is a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of
Psychoanalysis. He is the author, most recently, of Managed Lives: Psycho-
analysis, Inner Security and the Social Order. He currently works in private
practice in London.
Ardyn Halter is an artist born in London and based in Israel. His oil paintings
and his prints have been exhibited in museums in Europe and Israel and his
work is in museum and national library collections in the United States, Europe
and Israel, including the Victoria and Albert Museum; the British Library; the
Open Museum, Israel; the New York Public Library; and the National Library
of Ireland. His major stained glass projects include Yad LaYeled (with Roman
Halter); the National Genocide Memorial, Rwanda; and numerous stained glass
windows in London, one of which, The Tree of Life (St Johns Wood Synagogue),
is celebrated in the book The Hundred Best Stained Glass Sites of London.
Paul Heritage is Professor of Drama and Performance and Director of People’s
Palace Projects, a School of English and Drama research centre. Since 1991,
he has been creating arts and cultural projects between the UK and Brazil,
including 15 years of performance-based human rights projects in the Brazil-
ian prison system from São Paulo through to the Amazon region. As Associate
Producer at the Barbican Centre for three years, he created a partnership with
Grupo Cultural AfroReggae that included productions of From the Favela to
the World and Favelization as well as community-based projects in the East
End of London. His current research includes practice-based projects on cul-
tural value, Shakespeare, Brazilian indigenous cultures, arts and homelessness.
In 2004, he was made a Knight of the Order of the Rio Branco by the Brazilian
government.
 About the editor and contributors xiii

Steven Mendoza is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, trainer, supervisor and

teacher of psychoanalytic trainees. His secondary education was in the sci-
ences and his professional experience in the film industry, social work and
market research. Some of his writing can be read in the British Journal of
Psychotherapy. He is a Buddhist and an amateur painter and photographer. He
loves walking in Scotland and hates gardening and beach holidays.
Serena Messina is a Licensed Psychologist working at the Austin Child Guid-
ance Center in Austin, Texas. She is also Visiting Scholar and Lecturer at the
University of Texas at Austin, in the departments of Human Development and
Family Science and Educational Psychology. Dr Messina’s research interests
focus on attachment and factors affecting children’s emotional development.
Martin Miller is a member of the Swiss Federation of Psychologists, and gradu-
ate of the University in Zurich. He was also educated by Dr Jan Bastiaans in
Holland and in Psychosomatics with Dr Christel Schöttler in Germany. He
received further psychotherapeutic training in London along with training in
organisational psychotherapy. He is author of The True “Drama of the Gifted
Child”: The Tragedy of Alice Miller – How Repressed War Trauma Impact
Families (currently available only in German: Das wahre Drama des begabten
Kindes. Die Tragödie Alice Millers – wie verdrängte Kriegstraumata in der
Familie wirken, Kreuz, Verlag, 2013).
Sylvia Paskin has edited and co-edited various books of poetry, short fiction
and Yiddish film. In addition she has written the scripts for two short films:
L’Esprit de L’Escalier and Dream Life of Debris, both of which are set in and
around Istanbul. Sylvia is a Tutor at JW3 (Jewish Community Centre, London)
where she teaches creative writing. Currently she is compiling a collection of
her poetry for publication and is working on a play titled A True Friend of Eng-
land, set in Berlin and London and based on an intriguing aspect of her family
history. When that is completed, then “the complex family drama of Trotsky
and his household on Buyukada beckons”.
Margot Waddell is a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society and Visiting
Lecturer at the Tavistock Clinic. She works in private clinical practice and pre-
viously worked for many years in the British National Health Service (NHS),
as a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist in the Tavistock Clinic’s Adolescent
Department. In addition to publishing many papers and books, she has taught
extensively in the UK and around the world. For the last 20 years, she has also
edited, and latterly co-edited, the Tavistock Clinic Series (recently acquired by
Routledge). As Series Editor she has worked on all 50 Tavistock publications
to date, a collection that represents a rich diversity of psychoanalytic and psy-
chotherapeutic subjects springing from the Clinic’s range of NHS practices.
Christopher Wintle has taught music in the University of London since 1979
and is the founding director of Plumbago Books and Arts (2000). He reviewed
xiv About the editor and contributors

opera for the Times Literary Supplement for 20 years and has written exten-
sively for leading opera houses in the UK. His interest in opera has been
matched by an unaffiliated fascination with psychoanalysis – his monograph
What Opera Means (2018) includes a section on psychology. He is also the
literary executor of the music critic Hans Keller (1919–1985), in the 1940s a
leading Freudian. His editions of Keller include Music and Psychology (2003)
and Britten (2013).
Foreword

It is fitting that a book with so commanding and suggestive a title should turn
out to have gathered such a fine collection of reflections, ones ranging from the
intensely personal to the deeply erudite. The contributing authors offer varying
interpretations of the subject, whether based in myth, in history, in literature, in
biblical stories, on the stage or in intimate examinations of self and other within
the family framework.
For the title draws in anyone, and everyone, who has an interest in the internal
and external worlds and in the relationship between the two; between, at once,
their own felt version of who their parent or parents are, or were, and also the seen
version of how the world regarded them. Here, we find ourselves engrossed in
chapters by the offspring of many historically significant families. Yet the pages
also invite, even compel, a reader to engage with their own parent or parents’ and
families’ legacies, of what they meant to others and to themselves. These mean-
ings are irrespective of whether those lives were special in any external and rec-
ognised way, or how consciously they stayed part of the stories that a child carries
within, as internal stories of those life experiences. Here the emphasis tends to be
on the shadow cast, yet not entirely so, for in some chapters it is clear that having
a parent who is felt to be ‘a hard act to follow’ is very much a function of a whole
tangle of historical, transgenerational and personal factors that have to be taken
into consideration.
In keeping with the character of the book, I shall try to draw these different reg-
isters together by recounting some of my own memories. I was first reading Jona-
than Burke’s fascinating collection as I travelled north to teach in Scotland. I was
to give papers about ‘the unhoused mind’, issues of familial surrender and suc-
cession, in relation to King Lear in particular, and also about Melanie Klein and
her theories of the impact on the personality of very early experiences, whether of
nurture or neglect. My much-delayed Virgin train was likely to take six hours to
reach Edinburgh. I found myself dwelling on the thrilling verbal accounts, from
my childhood (possibly embellished) of my great-grandfather driving the Flying
Scotsman steam train from London to Edinburgh non-stop in four hours. I had not
thought about this remarkable feat for some years but, because of the book in my
hands, my own story internally ran on. My great-grandfather’s son, my beloved
xvi Foreword

grandpa, fought in the trenches during the First World War. His son, James, my
own father, was an impoverished Edinburgh scholarship boy. He earned his own
way through higher education, came south, worked, enlisted and landed on D-Day
on the Normandy beaches, an unsung hero, as he was to be in his subsequent
life in government service. Here, too, but for the obituaries, he remained largely
unknown.
I would probably not have reflected in any such terms but for the invitation to
contribute to this compelling book, one that is sometimes disturbing and, at once,
deeply thoughtful and moving. Here there is some joy but also much sorrow; both
celebration and gratitude and also loss, misunderstanding, bitterness, pain and
regret.
The title draws any reader in to some kind of reverie about what has contributed
to, and what has impeded, their own growth as human beings, and with what may
have enabled them to develop and to nurture something of worth in others.
For me, such reflections contributed nothing of the legacy of some of the well-
known families featured in this book, but something much more modest, though
certainly no less important. These pages, in inviting, as they do, personal reflec-
tion on one’s forebears, can have a bearing on a possible reframing of the picture,
true for me as, surely, for many readers.
That my great-grandfather drove that famous steam train; that his son fought
in the trenches; that his son landed on D-Day did not command any place in the
history books. But internally, to me, these experiences and the whole culture and
politics of two world wars proffered the basis for everything that I have ever
found important in life: to unsung work; the individual unnamed commitment to
doing one’s very best for the family, for the community, for the country and for
those who were dedicated to serving it in so many ways: unknown ways – and
much else – unnamed, unsung.
These qualities certainly constitute hard acts to follow, and this impressive col-
lection of papers will surely inspire the reader not only to reflect on those who feel
that their forebears cast a shadow of sorts, but also that they cast a light – perhaps
one that cannot immediately be seen; perhaps one that we are too blind to see.
Some may feel diminished by their inherited family legacy; others may be encour-
aged to re-think the legacy of their own unique make-up and experience.
Travelling to Scotland always stirs in me a powerful identification with the
Waddell family history, the name stemming (as ‘history’ has it) from the west
coast wreck of part of the Spanish Armada, the remnants of which fetched up, as
I learnt from my ‘Gran’, and was confirmed many years later in London, by my
Holloway Road electrician, in the Woedell – the place of woe.
The other half of the family story, my mother’s, is totally different: ruled by my
sadistic, mad and terrifying grandmother, not infrequently sectioned in the then
notorious ‘snake pit’ mental hospital, St Bernard’s, Grandma had married into
the British Officer Class during the Raj. My mother’s life was shadowed, from
the first, by parental mental illness and bereavement, yet it led to her passionate
commitment not to re-visit the horrors of her childhood and her depressed self
 Foreword xvii

on her own children. Isolated and largely uneducated, she did her very best. She
devoured the great poets, playwrights and novelists; she danced, sang and played
the piano beautifully, but suffered the well-known deprivations of a middle-class
housewife in the post-war years.
These two utterly different people married during the Battle of Britain. Their two
children were also utterly different, in every way. As my tutor at the Tavistock Clinic,
Martha Harris, rightly put it: “No two siblings have the same parents”. This simple
statement, so obviously true, is, in the context of this book, also deeply important.
For some, a parent’s fame, status, genius even, is felt to be excluding, neglectful,
crushing. For others, it carries the seeds of a different kind of self-hood – not so
diminished by parental eminence, as simply part of the extraordinarily complex pic-
ture of how the human personality is formed and inwardly survives, and how it is,
over time, that it develops in whatever way that it does.
This is a matter that psychoanalysis has always sought to explain and Freud’s
comment, well over a century ago, that we are still only in the foothills when it
comes to the question of understanding human nature, is as true now as it ever
was. This book casts much light on the often surprising inside stories and out-
comes stirred by that question, and, most importantly, requires the reader to think
anew about the manifold factors that contribute to the various disguises that others
believe to be ‘you’.
Margot Waddell
Child and Adult Psychoanalyst
Preface
A hard act to follow

What do we mean when we say of others, of family members and particularly of

our elders that they are ‘a hard act to follow’? Are we speaking of their achieve-
ments, their personalities, their talents or perhaps their overall bearing? In other
words, what are these ‘acts’ that are so powerfully experienced by us as being
hard to follow? What or who has made them appear so difficult to emulate?
In the chapters that follow we focus on personalities in the field of psycho-
analysis including Freud, Melanie Klein and her daughter, Melitta Schmideberg;
Alice Miller and her son, Martin. Other chapters centre on selected personalities
in the Bible, Shakespeare, opera, politics and literature, religion and family life,
philosophy and art, all viewed primarily, albeit not exclusively, from an analytic
perspective.
As psychoanalytic enquiries traditionally begin with Freud, our preface will
follow suit by referring to Freud, not Sigmund Freud this time, but for our pur-
poses rather, his eldest son, Martin. Reporting on a long-term study of children
of famous and infamous parents,1 Dr Danielle Knafo, begins with the following
statement by Martin Freud:

The son of a genius remains the son of a genius, and his chances of winning
human approval of anything he may do hardly exist if he attempts to make
any claim to fame detached from that of his father.2

Yet the work and reputation of Anna Freud, Martin’s younger sister, may
already call this assertion into question. Guardian and exponent of her father’s
science and his legacy, at 41 she authored The Ego and the Mechanisms of
Defence, first published in 1936 – an 80th birthday gift to her father who, on
reading it, wrote:

She has become an independent person who has been granted the gift of rec-
ognising that which only confuses others.3

Were these simply the words of a proud father, a man able to recognise genius in
another, or shall we see them as an expression of something more aspirational,
 Preface xix

even urgent – perhaps an unconscious desire in Freud whose upper jaw and pal-
ate were by then ravaged by cancer, to see his pioneering work live on in his
offspring?
In some cases the working demands of the ‘genius’ may be so all-consuming,
or at least be experienced as such, Knafo reflects, that often little time whatsoever
is left for their children and their emotional growth, thus leaving the offspring of
some with feelings of neglect and abandonment – a palpable sense of not being
loved.
Drafting the outlines of this book, with music in the background, my mind
drifts to figures in the world of music and the accolades they are accorded. I hear
the playing of the enigmatic Glenn Gould – “one of the best-known and most
celebrated classical pianists of the 20th century” – reclusive and eccentric (infa-
mous for cancelling performances!), playful and mesmerising in equal measure.
Though never having fathered children of his own, he was felt to be kind, avun-
cular and undoubtedly playful with the children of the woman with whom he had
had a love affair and planned to marry. Yet it seems the children, whose loyalties
were divided between their father and their mother’s lover, “bore the brunt of the
emotional hit and were left with unresolved feelings after Mr Gould’s untimely
death at the age of 50”.4
As I keep writing, the strings of the violinist Yehudi Menuhin are now begin-
ning to play in the background. By this point, however, as beautiful as the music
sounds, I cannot help but stop and wonder about the man himself: a hard act to
follow? A day in the life of Menuhin’s son, the pianist Jeremy Menuhin, as told
to the journalist Judith Woods, provides us with the following snapshot of life in
the Menuhin household:

To the outside world, he [Jeremy] and his three elder siblings, including
two from Yehudi’s first marriage, wanted for nothing. They would be photo-
graphed for newspapers and magazines, relaxing together with their parents
in the Alps, like a latter-day von Trapp family. The reality was very different.
The emotional life of our family was grotesque. We barely saw our par-
ents, and when we did, the atmosphere was dour and artificial.

Of growing up in the shadow of his father, Jeremy Menuhin put it simply:

My father regarded me as an adjunct to his career, like some empty vessel, to

be filled by him.5

I have thus far remarked briefly on Sigmund Freud and two of his offspring, then
speculated about personalities in music – classical music in the Western world
and, at that, of only two famous figures. But could a ‘hard act to follow’ be a
theme more common than we might first imagine?
I would argue that the issues presented here are in some ways familiar to us all.
We might well look up to our immediate forebears as great sources of pride – we
xx Preface

shine in their light. Or we may experience ourselves as overshadowed by them, as

if in a daily struggle to match, outdo or perhaps escape the overpowering spectre
their light projects.
And so, on a more personal note, the following vignette is cautiously
offered:

“Justin Trudeau – a real Liberal!”, declares my son with innocent admiration

of Canada’s new Prime Minister. Instinctively I respond, “Justin Trudeau?
You should have seen his father, Pierre Elliot Trudeau!”; and in that impul-
sive retort I hear with startling clarity my own father’s voice – joining me,
teaching me but, I fear, somewhere one-upping me, as if to say, ‘Yes, but
I’ve seen better.’ In bringing my father back, I know immediately why I’ve
subtitled this preface “A Hard Act to Follow” – abbreviated in early commu-
nications with our authors as simply ‘HAF’.

On the surface, of course, my response to my son addressed a simple desire to

acquaint him with something of myself and my past. Painfully close to the sur-
face, however, the very manner of my reply betrayed perhaps something more
sinister – a proud identification with a loved and loving father and esteemed
teacher, yet at the same time a desire to liberate myself from the mantle of being
the son of a charming scholar too often referred to, I feared, ad lauditum. Without
further personal analysis, how long would I assume the role of ‘half’ – the dif-
fident beneficiary of the ‘HAF-Master’?
I am not alone, of course. The league that I have joined, consciously or not, of
proud and exasperated offspring, is in fact quite common. ‘Aren’t you the son of
. . . ?’ What a proud legacy I was given, you might say, and what could possibly
be wrong with legacy? Nothing or perhaps everything – depending on what kind
of legacy we’re dealing with, who the donor is and who the heir – or could it be
perhaps the manner in which the transmission itself is experienced? In our book
we will examine the nature of legacy and attempt to grapple with the challenges
that different legacies can present.
Jonathan Burke

Notes
1 Knafo, D. (1991). What’s in a Name? Psychoanalytic Considerations on Children of
Famous Parents. Psychoanalytic Psychology 8:263–281.
2 Freud, M. (1983). Sigmund Freud: Man and Father. New York: Aronson.
3 Freud, E. L., ed. (1987). The Letters of Sigmund Freud and Arnold Zweig. New York:
New York University Press.
4 Hampson, S. (2009). Christopher Foss Grew Up with Glenn Gould, but Never Got to
Say Goodbye. Globe and Mail, 29 November and last updated 23 August 2012. See also
“Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould”, 2009 film directed by Michele Hozer
and Peter Raymont.
5 Woods, J. (2005). I Only Felt Loved When I Played Well. The Telegraph 21 February.
Introduction
Jonathan Burke

I must admit, and those closest to me would readily attest, A Hard Act to Follow:
The Shadow of the Parent – the title with which our book was originally framed – is
a theme close to my heart. The issue – at times the dilemma – inherent in the ‘act’
that is hard to follow is, I would suggest, familiar to us all. We may be conscious
of it in our everyday lives. We might indeed have gained an appreciation of the
role it has played in our development over the years. For some it may even dictate
their thoughts about their past and their visions or beliefs as to what the future has
in store for them.
As discussed in Part I of our book, living in the shadow of the parent is an expe-
rience tackled in biblical narrative (Chapter 1), explored in Greek mythology and
dramatised with psychological intensity in opera (Chapter 2). We know it as a theme
played out in myriad ways on the Shakespearean stage (Chapters 3 and 4). Indeed
whilst recently watching the British actor and author Oliver Ford Davies on the stage,
I was immediately transported to the theme of our book today. When later I wrote
to him about A Hard Act to Follow . . ., he immediately cited Hamlet, who after all

finds himself dominated by a perhaps inflated veneration of his recently dead

father, “where every god did seem to set his seal to give the world assurance
of a man”, while his imagined revulsion at his mother’s sex-life with his
uncle leads him to denounce women as “breeders of sinners”.

It is, of course, not only Shakespearean figures who invoke ancestral shadows,
but actors themselves who may well experience themselves in the same position.
Oliver Ford Davies recalls that in 1989 at the National Theatre,

Daniel Day-Lewis was said to have felt so in thrall to his famous poet father
who had died when he was fifteen, that he had visions of him on the battle-
ments, and that this finally drove him from the stage in mid-performance.1

A hard act to follow so deeply experienced?

Part II, titled “‘I’-Witness Accounts”, begins with a range of analytic perspec-
tives on our theme both past and present (Chapters 5–8). In Chapter 5 we examine
2 Jonathan Burke

how the theme relates to the life of Sigmund Freud and his experience of his own
parents – a sensual connection to his mother and the boundary that his father
signified for him. Thinking about Freud in the context of this chapter, I wondered
about the extent to which he could allow himself to grapple with the partheno-
genic phallacy of the so-called self-made man, and might even have wished, con-
sciously or not, to defend himself against such notions.
In Chapter 6 we follow events in the lives of Melanie Klein and her daughter
Melitta Schmideberg under the curious chapter title “Her Mother’s Footsteps” –
‘curious’, as on reading the chapter the central question What went wrong? beck-
ons us; moreover, why?
The two chapters that follow are, in a sense, two sides of the same coin as we
examine the darkness of the shadow cast on offspring by parents involved in past
atrocities: “the irresolvable conflict for children of perpetrators”, as Jungian ana-
lyst Coline Covington, author of Chapter 7, puts it. How apt that she should begin
her chapter by citing the Book of Deuteronomy (5:9) on visiting the iniquity of the
fathers onto the children for generations to come. Whilst pondering the psycho-
logical conflicts posed by this ‘tragic inheritance’, it is hard to imagine this quote
ever possessing greater meaning and power.
The next chapter continues with the ‘other side of the coin’ – the complex and
deeply troubling account of the son of a Nazi and a well-known Jewish psycholo-
gist and psychoanalyst, and the trauma of war coupled with his parents’ marriage
that had beset him. Indeed in Chapter 8 the son in question, the Swiss psycholo-
gist Martin Miller, relates his own personal struggle “to make his way out of the
shadow and into the sun”.
In Chapters 9–12 reflections on our theme are offered from a variety of addi-
tional perspectives including, broadly speaking, socio-political and philosophical.
In Chapter 9 the writer and poet Sylvia Paskin ponders the father and daughter
dyad of Lev Davidovich Bronstein – the political revolutionary best known to us
as Leon Trotsky, and the daughter who worshipped him yet barely got to know
him. Sylvia’s enquiry into this unusual relationship, if that is indeed what it can be
called, is followed by an appraisal, admittedly speculative, in the form of a coda
by the psychoanalyst Sara Collins.
Chapter 10 continues our theme with the story of a father who appeared unable
to recognise and appreciate his son’s remarkable development, his overall inter-
ests, not to mention his prodigious literary achievements – in this case, the son
being the social, political and satirical author, Franz Kafka.
Might we not find ourselves on similar, albeit hardly identical grounds today?
In Chapter 11 we take account of the life of the emeritus Harvard philosopher,
Stanley Cavell, and the shadow curiously cast over his work by his father.
Similarly Chapter 12 offers us personal reflections on a father–son relationship:
loving yet fragmented with, above all, an abiding sense of absence – there never
having been enough time ‘to mend’. The author – both psychotherapist and rabbi –
also takes the wider view as he examines life in the shadow as experienced by the
son of a Church of England minister.
 Introduction 3

Reflections in fine art

In the concluding Chapters 13 and 14, two artists offer us their unique experiences
of life as the offspring of figures in creative art and expression well-known by
their names, by their life stories or both.
There is much to cover in the chapters ahead, and whilst reference is made to
some of the more salient points before each chapter begins, I offer these with a
degree of trepidation as each of our authors are, in their own rights, for one reason
or another, ‘hard acts to follow’. Still, with this consideration in mind, I invite
you to join me in following our authors on their own unique explorations in the
shadow of the parent.

Note
1 In an interview with Time magazine Day-Lewis indicated that he had been speaking of
this experience in a metaphorical rather than literal sense, adding “to some extent I prob-
ably saw my father’s ghost every night, because of course if you’re working in a play
like Hamlet, you explore everything through your own experience”.
Reflecting further on performing Shakespeare, Oliver Ford Davies writes: “Laurence
Olivier’s 1944 Richard III set such a benchmark that actors felt daunted for the next
forty years, perhaps until Anthony Sher created something startlingly different in 1984.
Hard acts can be supplanted”.
As for his own experience, Ford Davies writes: “When I myself played King Lear at
the Almeida in 2002 I based my performance partly on my great-uncle, who in his last
years suffered from ungovernable (and unwarranted) anger towards his family”.
Part I

Perspectives
In the Bible
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Whoever ventures an exposure of the fashionable vices of
influential circles—whoever assails the citadels and strongholds of
crime and corruption, must not expect to elude numerous and deep-
laid conspiracies for the sacrifice of life, which, if he escape falling a
victim, he will be more than fortunate. Even so far, the author has
bitterly experienced all this. The marvel is that he is yet alive and
determined to continue in stronger terms than before exhibited—
relying on invincible truth and the better portions of society to bear
him up through the ordeal which he has to encounter. Although he
has suffered much, and has had many “hair-breadth escapes” from
the plots and snares laid for his destruction.
The subsequent part of the Appendix will inform the reader of
several infernal concoctions for assassination when attempts at
intimidation failed. The first of these will embrace particulars in the
period betwixt the publication and the author’s arrest, and the other
about three years after the trial had terminated. The period betwixt
publication and arrest cannot be devoid of interest to the reader—it
is a prelude to the important trial which followed. The incidents
involved during the time here referred to have ponderous bearings,
in a circumstantial point of view, toward establishing the substantial
correctness of Copeland’s confessions, although intended to
invalidate them and make a nullity of the whole.
During imprisonment Copeland seemed to fully comprehend the
profound plans and commanding power of one by the name of
Shoemake. This is the man who played so conspicuous a part
before and on trial in combination with the three prosecuting parties
of Mobile. The arch-enemy of all mankind cannot surpass him in
perfidious deception.
“With smooth dissimulation well skilled to grace,
A devil’s purpose with an angel’s face.”
He who it was who first addressed a letter of almost matchless
duplicity to the author, while residing in Perry county, under a forged
or fictitious signature. He who it was who next visited the author in
person, first to try the arts of persuasion, and then the designing
influences of intimidation, but in either case without the desired
effect. After this, he it was who entered into compact with the
prosecuting three, of Mobile, bore the requisition from the Governor
of Alabama to the Governor of Mississippi for the rendition of the
author, and, in the circumstances connected with the arrest, acted in
such a mysterious and suspicious manner as could leave no doubt
that he contemplated the life of the author under a plausible pretext
of resistance to lawful authority. But this object was signally
defeated. A considerable number of good citizens quickly collected
together, well armed for protection, and volunteered to accompany
the author under arrest to Mobile, which they accordingly did, and
effectually secured his safety.
The trial followed next. By careful attention to the circumstances
connected with it much information may be gathered, showing the
force of political considerations, and how hard the task for truth and
justice, in the first efforts, to gain a triumph over a combination of
wealth and intellect leagued together for bad purposes. For instance,
the presiding Judge, McKinstry, could have had no personal
prejudice or enmity against the author, and in his heart might have
rejoiced over the dissolution of the clan, but his palpably
reprehensible conduct on trial furnishes convincing evidence that he
was influenced by other considerations than those of law and justice.
To this fact Dr. Bevell, one of the impaneled jurymen on the case,
had his eye turned in the references to the Judge’s conduct and
political considerations, which references will be found in his letter
published in another part of the work.
On the days of trial the notorious character of this said Shoemake
was made public and manifest. He was the principal witness relied
on in the prosecution. Another, equally infamous, as demonstrated
by the most satisfactory of testimony, by the name of Bentonville
Taylor, was brought from afar in rags and poverty, and sent back in
costly attire with money in profusion. Does the impartial judgment
require anything more to produce conviction of the shameful features
of the prosecution? If so, he will find much more before he gets
through the particulars of the trial. Added to this, the almost universal
outburst of sympathy in behalf of the author, with letters of
condolence from distant parts, all of which will be found in the proper
places of the work.
Under circumstances so adverse it is not to be expected that
Copeland, in his confession, could give more than a small fractional
part of the transactions of the whole clan. Since then a number and
variety of interesting matters have been collected from the most
authentic of sources, and will be found in the appropriate place of
this pamphlet.
The subject of crime opens an almost inexhaustible expanse for
expatiation. An elaborate treatise on its causes and remedies is too
prolix for a work of this nature—only a few passing observations on
this theme will be found interspersed, which are relevant and have a
direct bearing on the main topics discussed.
And now, in closing this introductory part, the author wishes the
public to understand that he has no personal animosity against those
who so wrongfully deprived him of his liberty, ruined him with
expenses, and encompassed his life in so many intricate ways. He
has not indulged in any revengeful passions, but has endeavored to
strictly confine himself to the unprejudiced and impartial province of
the historian and biographer—according merit where due, and with
propriety denouncing crimes, corruptions and unhealthy conspiracies
whenever they come in the way. And, if in so doing, he is to endure a
repetition of persecutions and prosecutions, with fresh dangers
added, he will try to bear them with all the fortitude he can command,
with the hope that the peaceably and honestly disposed parts of the
community will rally for the pulling down the edifices of vice, and for
establishing a better, a purer and a healthier condition of society.
 PREFACE.

The number of years during which the Copeland and Wages Gang
of Land Pirates pursued a successful career of robbery, incendiarism
and murder in the United States; their final dismemberment, disgrace
and violent end at the hand of retributive justice; and the stern moral
lesson taught by their history and fate, have induced the
undersigned to publish the confession of one of the leaders of the
gang, as made by himself, in anticipation of his death at the hands of
the hangman. Its accuracy may be relied on; and indeed it is hardly
possible to doubt the truth of its statements, so minutely,
consecutively and clearly are they related, and so consonant are
they with the various localities and the characters of the men.
This confession was given to me, principally by the aid of copious
memoranda which Copeland had kept for years in his diary, and
which materially refreshed his memory.
James Copeland, the subject of this memoir, was born near
Pascagoula river, in Jackson county, Miss., on the 18th day of
January, 1823. He was the son of Isham Copeland and Rebecca
Copeland, his wife—formerly Rebecca Wells. The parents had
resided for many years near Pascagoula river.
Isham Copeland was a farmer in easy circumstances, with a good
farm, several negroes, plenty of horses and mules and other live
stock; and, in fact, he might be said to have everything about him
that a family in moderate circumstances could require to enable him
to live comfortably. He was the father of several sons; but, alas! this,
which is by most men deemed a blessing, proved to him a curse;
and after encountering many trials in youth and manhood, just when
he thought to enjoy the peace and repose of old age, his son’s
misconduct drew on him many severe reverses of fortune, and finally
drove him to the grave broken hearted.
J. R. S. PITTS.
 LIFE AND CAREER

OF

JAMES COPELAND,
THE SOUTHERN LAND PIRATE, AND HIS INTIMATE ASSOCIATES,

AS RELATED IN DETAIL, BY HIMSELF, IN PRISON, A FEW DAYS BEFORE

HIS EXECUTION, TO DR. J. R. S. PITTS, THEN SHERIFF OF PERRY COUNTY,
MISS.

When I was about ten or eleven years of age, my father sent me to

school, and I went at intervals from time to time, to several good
teachers. I might, with proper training and management, have
received a liberal education. My father often insisted, and urged it
upon me to study and try to obtain a good education, and he told me
that he would send me to school as long as I wished to go. But being
misled by my associations with bad company, I was engaged,
instead, in studying mischief, and other things no way profitable to
myself or advantageous to youths. It was my misfortune, that my
disposition led me on to study how to cheat, defraud and swindle my
comrades and school-mates, out of their pocket-knives, their money
or anything they might have, which I wanted, and I was generally
successful in my undertaking. If I could not effect my object in one
way, I would resort to some other, and finally obtain it before I
stopped. Indulging in this rude and mischievous disposition, I
naturally became more hardened, and when at school, it was my
delight to see the scholars whipped or otherwise punished, and I
would often tell lies on any of them that would displease me, so as to
cause them to get a flogging; and very often I would tell a lie on an
innocent scholar, so as to clear a favorite and guilty one, and have
the innocent one punished. It most generally happened, that I
managed my villainy so as to get clear; it sometimes happened,
however, that I got punished. This I did not care for any longer than
the punishment lasted. So soon as I was released, I would commit a
worse misdeed than the one I was chastised for, and any of my
school-mates that were the cause of my punishment, I was certain to
wreak my vengeance on, by having them punished in some way.
From my bad conduct in school there was no teacher that would
permit me to go to his school long at a time, and whenever I had any
difficulty with my teachers, my mother would always protect and
indulge me in what I would do; and being so indulged and protected,
this excited me to commit crimes of greater magnitude. And I am
frank, here to say, that my mother has been the principal and great
cause of all my crimes and misfortunes, by stimulating me to the
commission of those deeds that have brought me to what I am.
When I was about the age of twelve years, my mother one day
sent me with a sack to a neighbor’s house (Mr. Helverson’s), to
procure some vegetables or greens. I communicated my errand to
Mrs. H., who told me to go to the garden and take what I wanted. I
had no knife with me. I asked Mrs. H. to loan me a knife, which I
knew she had, and she pulled out a very pretty little knife from her
work-pocket, and told me not to lose or break it, for it was a present
made to her by a friend. This I listened to and promised her that I
would be careful. Now, while I was in the garden procuring
vegetables or greens, my whole mind and wits were employed in
devising some mode by which I could cheat the lady out of her knife.
Finally, after I had procured my vegetables and placed them in the
sack, I put the knife in the bottom of the sack; I then returned to the
house, and told the lady that I laid the knife down in the garden, and
had forgot the place and could not find it; I asked her to go with me
and help me hunt for it, which she accordingly did, and we both
hunted diligently, but to no effect. The lady was very anxious about
her knife and much regretted its loss, while I was all the time
laughing in my sleeve, to know how completely I had swindled her.
This trick of mine passed off very well for a time. It was, however,
found out that I had the knife, and that created some noise and
trouble. I was accused of stealing the knife. But I denied all
accusations and stated that I had bought the knife I had, in Mobile,
and proved it by my mother, who always upheld me in my rascality.
This may be said to have been my first successful feat in stealing,
although I was in the habit of stealing little frivolous things from the
school boys, before that time.
My father living a very close neighbor to Mr. Helverson, whose
family is related to ours, their stock run together in the same range.
My next onset in stealing was from Mr. H. again; he had a lot of very
fine fat pigs, and these were at that time selling at a high price in
Mobile. My brother Isham (nicknamed Whinn) and myself geared up
a horse in a cart and started, pretendingly for a camp hunt to kill deer
and haul to Mobile. We went a short distance that night and camped.
During the night we went to Helverson’s hog bed, and stole a cart
load of his finest pigs, fifteen in number, hauled them to Mobile and
sold them at two dollars each. Although Mr. H. was satisfied in his
own mind that we had stolen his pigs, yet he could not prove it; and I
escaped again. So I was stimulated with my success, and being still
more encouraged and upheld by my mother, and not exceeding
fourteen years of age, I believed that I could make an independent
fortune by thieving, and became insensible of the danger which
awaited me. A short time after the incident just related had
transpired, I made a second rake upon Mr. H.’s pigs. But in my
second adventure, I was not so fortunate as I was in the first, for Mr.
H. rather got me that time. The proof was sufficiently strong, and I
was prosecuted, for the first time, for pig stealing. Well knowing my
guilt as I did, and the evidence against me, I thought my case
extremely doubtful. I was arrested by the sheriff of Jackson county,
and had to give bond to appear at the Circuit Court of Jackson
county, to answer an indictment preferred against me by the State of
Mississippi, for the crime of larceny. The bond required me to attend
the Court from term to term, and from day to day, until discharged by
due course of law. My poor old father employed the best counsel to
defend me, that could be obtained in all the country. This cost the
poor old man a large sum of money. My counsel, after learning the
facts of the case, advised me that my only chance of acquittal, was
to put off the trial as long as possible. This he did from term to term,
in hopes that something might occur to get me acquitted. I well knew
if my case should be brought to a hearing, I would be convicted, and
I dreaded the consequences; for I knew that there would then be no
chance on earth to prevent my being sent to the penitentiary.
Fully sensible of my situation, young as I was at that time, it
became necessary for me to devise some plan to get out of the
scrape, and I reflected for weeks how to manage this matter. One
day, in a conversation with my mother and some other confidential
friends, she and they advised me to consult Gale H. Wages; and my
mother said she would send for Wages and see him herself, as he
was a particular friend of hers. This she accordingly did, and he
came to our house. There were several of the clan at our house
then, though I did not know them at that time as such; but my mother
did, as I afterward found out when I joined them. Among the many
plans proposed by the clan, none seemed to suit my mother or
Wages. Some were for waylaying and killing the witnesses; some for
one thing, and some for another. Finally Wages made his
proposition, which was seconded by my mother. This was the
proposition I had been waiting to hear, for my mother told me that
whatever plan Wages would pursue, he would be certain to get me
clear. His plan was, that we should, in some way or other, endeavor
to have the Court house and all the records destroyed, and so
destroy the indictment against me. By that means there would be
nothing against me, and I should be acquitted, as no charge would
rest against me.
With this plan I was highly pleased, and much elated with the idea
that I had a friend fully able and competent to bear me out, and who
would stand up to me at any and all hazards, and bring me out clear.
Wages pledged himself to me in private to do this, and he was as
good as his word. We set a time for the accomplishment of our
design, and we accordingly met. The precise date I cannot recollect,
but it was a dry time, and a dark night, with a strong breeze from the
North. After procuring sufficient dry combustibles, we entered the
Court-house, went up stairs, and placed our combustibles in the roof,
on the windward side of the house. Wages went down stairs to patrol
around. After reconnoitering around sufficiently, he gave me the
signal, by a rap or knock on the wall; I immediately sprung open the
door of my dark-lantern, applied the match, and made my escape
down stairs, and Wages and myself left the place in double quick
time. We halted on an eminence some five or six hundred yards to
the southeast of the Court house, to watch the conflagration. Such a
sight I never had before beheld. The flames seemed to ascend as
high, if not higher than the tops of the tallest pine trees; they made
everything perfectly light for over two hundred yards around. After
the Court-house, records and all were completely consumed, and
the flames had abated and died away, we took our departure for
home, rejoicing at our success in the accomplishment of our design.
There was a great deal of talk and conjecture about the burning of
the Court-house, and we were accused—at least, I was strongly
censured, but there never was any discovery made, nor any proof
sufficient to get hold of either Wages or myself; so I again got clear
of a crime of which I was guilty and for which I ought to have been
punished.
The assistance, advice and protection I had received from Wages,
gave me the utmost confidence in him, and he had unbounded
influence over me; I looked on him as my warmest and most
confidential friend, and I eventually pinned my whole faith on him
and relied upon him for advice and directions in everything. Although
a villain, as I must now acknowledge Wages was, yet he had some
redeeming traits in his character. At his own home he was friendly,
kind and hospitable; in company, he was affable and polite; and no
person at first acquaintance, would have believed for one moment,
that he was the out lawed brigand that he finally proved himself to
be; and I firmly believe he would have spilt the last drop of blood in
his veins to protect me; yet I must say that he was the principal
author of my misfortunes, and has brought me where I am.
After the burning of the Court House, the intercourse between
Wages and myself became more frequent. We became strongly
allied to each other, and confidence was fully established between
us. Wages one day made a proposition to me; to join him, and go
with him, alleging that we could make money without work, and live
in ease and genteel style; that there were a great many persons
concerned with him, in different parts of the country, some of them
men of wealth and in good standing in the community in which they
lived; that they had an organized Band that would stand up to each
other at all hazard; that they had a Wigwam in the city of Mobile,
where they held occasional meetings; and that they had many
confederates there whom the public little suspected. To this
proposition I readily acceded; it corresponded with my disposition
and idea of things, and then, being the age I was, and stimulated by
my past success, I feared nothing.
I went to Mobile with Wages, and there he introduced me to some
of his comrades, who were members of his Clan. They accordingly
held a meeting at their Wig-wam, and I was there introduced by
Wages, (who was their president,) as a candidate for membership, I
should have been rejected, had Wages not interceded for me. I was
finally passed and admitted to membership. Wages then
administered to me the oath, which every member had to take. I was
then instructed and given the signs and pass-words of the Clan; and
above all was cautioned to keep a watchful eye, and not to let any
person entrap me; nor let any person, under pretence of belonging to
the Clan, or wishing to join, obtain in any way information from me in
relation to the existence of the Clan, or their plan or mode of
operation. The oath was administered on the Holy Bible. (Oh! what a
profanation of that good book!) The form of the oath was: “You
solemnly swear upon the Holy Evangelist of Almighty God, that you
will never divulge, and always conceal and never reveal any of the
signs or pass-words of our order; that you will not invent any sign,
token or device by which the secret mysteries of our order may be
made known; that you will not in any way betray or cause to be
betrayed any member of this order—the whole under pain of having
your head severed from your body—so help you God.”
Wages was President and Chief of the Clan. All important
business of the Clan was entrusted to his care. He called meetings,
gave all notices to the Clan for their gatherings, and when
assembled he presided in the chair. In all matters, he had the
preferred right to introduce resolutions for the benefit of the Clan.
There were present at this meeting, Charles McGrath, Vice-
President; McClain, Secretary; John Eelva, Henry Sanford, Richard
Cabel and Sampson Teapark, Vigilant Committee; William Brown, of
Mobile, Tyler.
After I was thus initiated, and invested with all the signs, words
and tokens, and fully instructed in the mysteries of the Clan, I was
taught their mode of secret correspondence, by means of an
alphabet or key, invented by the notorious Murrell, of Tennessee. I
was furnished with the alphabet and key, and in that same mystic
writing I was furnished with a list of all the names that belonged to
our Clan, and a list of several other Clans, that ours was in
correspondence with, their several places of residence, and the
locations of their Wig-wams; so that when we stole a horse, a mule,
or a negro, we knew precisely where to carry them, to have them
concealed and sold.
After I had been thus fully initiated and had become identified with
the Clan, Wages and McGrath, knowing my ability, and that I was a
keen shrewd and cunning lad, took me under their immediate special
charge. We had a rendezvous at old Wages’ about twelve miles from
Mobile, and another at Dog River, about the same distance in a
different direction. We ranged that season from one place to the
other, and sometimes in town, stealing any and everything we could.
Sometimes killing beef, hogs and sheep, hauling them to town and
selling them; sometimes stealing a fine horse or mule and conveying
it to some of our comrades to conceal; and occasionally a negro
would disappear. All this while, we pretended to be engaged in
making shingles, burning charcoal, and getting laths and pickets,
each for himself. We always managed to furnish the family with all
the meat they could use.
We worked on in this way until late in the summer or early in the
fall of 1839, when most of the inhabitants had left the city; and we
having six of our Clan then employed as City Guards, we rallied our
forces and Wages ordered a meeting. It was there resolved that we
should prepare ourselves with boats and teams—the boats to be
stationed at a particular wharf in Mobile, on a certain night, and the
teams at a landing named, on Dog River the next night. It was also
ordered that we should assemble at our Wig-wam on the first night at
seven o’clock. The meeting then adjourned.
The promised evening came, and every member was punctual in
his attendance. It was a full meeting of the Clan. We all rigged
ourselves out with false moustaches, some with false whiskers,
some with a green patch over one eye, and many of them dressed
like sailors, and thus fitted out and disguised, we were ready for
action, with all kinds of false keys, skeleton keys, lock picks, crow
bars, &c. At nine o’clock the City Guards turned out, and by a
previous arrangement, those of our comrades who mounted guard,
were on the first watch. They immediately sent two of their number to
inform us where to make the first break. They had reconnoitered
previously and knew what places had the richest and most valuable
goods, and they had also procured false keys for several stores.
Thus armed, each man with his revolver, bowie knife and dark
lantern, about ten o’clock we started out. Our first break was a fancy
dry-goods store which we opened with one of our keys. We took
over $5,000 worth of goods from that store, fine silks, muslins, &c.
We next entered a rich jewelry store, and made a clean sweep there.
There were no fine watches; we got some silver watches and two or
three gold watches, left, we supposed, to be repaired. Our raise
there was about four to five thousand dollars. Our next break was on
a large clothing store. There we took $3000 worth of the finest and
best clothing. While we were at this, some of the clan were packing
off and storing in their boats. We had procured two butcher carts,
which would stand a short distance off and our men packed and
loaded the carts, which they hauled to our boats. About half-past
eleven o’clock, knowing that there would be a new guard out at
twelve o’clock, we dispersed and set fire to each of the stores we
had robbed. Soon there was the cry of fire; the wind commenced
blowing, and the fire spread rapidly. Our Clan now commenced
operations anew; we seized and carried out goods from any and
every store we came to, still retaining the carts. We kept them
constantly employed; and before daylight we had loaded two large,
swift boats, and had a large quantity of merchandise in a “wood flat.”
A little before daylight, we left with our boats for Dog River. We
arrived there about eight o’clock, ten miles from the city, and went up
the river to our landing place, where we secreted our goods until that
night, when we had our teams at work, hauling off and concealing
goods, which we finally accomplished the second night. Wages then
ordered a meeting of the clan, and punctual attendance was
required. The object of this meeting was for a report from each
member of the amount of goods he had obtained, so that an equal
distribution might be made. From the report then made, we had
procured over twenty-five thousand dollars worth of goods of almost
every description. We had an abundant supply of groceries and
liquors. Our friends in the city had a bountiful supply of almost
everything. We made a division of our plunder, and Wages, McGrath
and myself got for our share about six thousand dollars worth. We
were permitted to select the finest and most costly goods, such as
the jewelry, fine silks, muslins etc., which we could carry in our
trunks.
Having properly stowed away our effects, we took a trip from
Mobile to Florida by way of Pensacola, carrying with us some of the
jewelry, watches and dry goods. We traveled from Pensacola
through Florida, with our pack of goods, as pedlars, each taking a
different route, and all to meet at Apalachicola on a certain day.
Wages went the middle route, McGrath the southern route, and I
went the northern route. I traveled some distance, occasionally
selling some of my plunder. I eventually arrived at a very rich
neighborhood, near the Chatochooca river, not far from the Alabama
line. There I soon disposed of most of my goods.
I fell in with a house where a very rich old widow lady lived. She
bought a good deal of my jewelry and other goods for her two young
daughters. I pretended to be sick, for an excuse to stay there. This
lady had a very nice mulatto girl about seventeen years old. During
the time I was there pretending to be sick, I made an arrangement
with this girl to run away with me; I promised to take her for a wife,
and carry her to a free State. She was to meet me on a certain night
at the landing on the river, about one mile from that place. I left the
house pretending to go to Columbus, Ga., and traveled up the river
some thirty miles, where I stole a canoe. I procured some meat and
bread and started down the river. On the night appointed I was at the
landing, and about ten o’clock the mulatto girl came. She had
provided bed clothing and provisions in plenty. I then started down
the river with my girl. We went about thirty miles that night, and lay
by in the river swamp all next day. The next night we made about
fifty miles down the river. The third night we reached Apalachicola,
two days previous to the time appointed to meet Wages and
McGrath. I landed a short distance above town, and left my girl in a
swamp just after daylight, and then went to the city. In looking
around I fell in with John Harden, he being one of our clan. He soon
gave me an introduction to a place where I could conceal my girl,
and stay myself. The next day McGrath arrived; I met him in the
street, and gave him a sign to follow me to our rendezvous. I showed
him my girl and told him the way I had got her; he then told me that
he had stolen a likely negro fellow, and had him concealed in a
swamp about four miles from town. After dinner, and a little before
night, McGrath and I went out to the swamp, brought in his fellow,
and concealed him at the same place where my girl was.
The next day about eight o’clock Wages came up; we were all on
the lookout for him. We gave him a hint to come to our place. We
showed Wages what a raise we had made; he then told us that he
had stolen two negroes and two fine horses, and that they were
concealed in the swamp about five miles from town. In fear of pursuit
he said we must leave instanter. We made an arrangement with
Harden and our landlord to take the horses. They gave Wages
twenty-five dollars a piece for the horses, and our board bill. That
night Wages and Harden went out to the swamp; Harden took the
horses and left, and Wages brought in his negroes and placed them
with ours. That night while Wages was gone after his negroes
McGrath and I went to a coffee house, and while there we met some
Spaniards that had a little schooner there, and which was then
loaded for New Orleans. We made the arrangement with them to
carry us and our negroes to New Orleans, returned to our place, and
had everything prepared. About ten o’clock Wages came in with his
negroes, and we all went on board the vessel, which weighed anchor
and sailed down the bar. Next morning the captain cleared his
vessel, and by ten o’clock we were over the bar and under way, with
a good breeze. On the second night, a little before day, we landed at
the Pontchartrain railroad, and left in the first cars for the city. We
went into one of our places in the city, got breakfast for ourselves
and negroes, and at nine o’clock we left in a steamboat for Bayou
Sara. We landed there, crossed the river and went to one of our clan
—a rich planter—where we sold our negroes. I got one thousand
dollars for my mulatto girl; McGrath sold his fellow for eleven
hundred dollars, and Wages sold each of his boys for nine hundred
dollars. We took our money and left for Mobile. My girl made
considerable fuss when I was about to leave, but I told her I would
return in a month, and rather pacified her. I must here acknowledge
that my conscience did that time feel mortified, after the girl had
come with me, and I had lived with her as a wife, and she had such
implicit confidence in me. My conscience still feels mortified when I
reflect how much better it would have been for me to have kept her
and lived with her than to come to what I have.
On our way to Mobile we stopped in New Orleans three or four
days. During our stay there was one fire. We made a small raise on
that of about one hundred dollars each. McGrath came very near
being caught by attempting to make a second haul. We left next day
for Mobile; landed at Pascagoula, and walked home by land, with our
money and the small amount of goods we had stolen in New
Orleans.
We then deposited our money, and gathered all the balance of our
fine goods that we had stolen in Mobile at the great fire, and what we
had stolen in New Orleans, and prepared ourselves for a second
tour. We had realized about four thousand five hundred dollars,
which we hid in the ground, and we took each of us about one
hundred and fifty dollars for our expenses, and an equal share of the
goods.
On the 25th day of March, 1843, Wages, McGrath and myself left
Mobile bound to Texas; we went to New Orleans, where we landed
the next day. We remained there about three days and sold a great
quantity of our goods, such as were too heavy to carry. While we
were in the city Wages won about seven hundred dollars from a
Tennessee corn dealer by the name of Murphy. McGrath and myself
had lost about one hundred and fifty dollars each. We left New
Orleans, went up the Mississippi, and landed at the house of an old
friend that belonged to our clan. His name was Welter. We spent one
day and night with him; we had seen him in the city a few days
before, and were invited to call, but when we approached his
residence we all pretended to be entire strangers. This was a strict
injunction upon our clan—when traveling never to meet any of our
comrades as acquaintances, but always treat them as entire
strangers, that we had never seen in our life.
Wages pretended to have some business with the old gentleman,
and introduced himself, McGrath and myself under fictitious names.
The old gentleman had two very nice genteel daughters. They were
sociable and refined, well educated, and highly accomplished every
way; he was wealthy, and had a good reputation in his
neighborhood, and no one would for one moment have suspected
him of belonging to our clan. But I afterward learned from Wages that
this old gentleman had belonged to the Murrell Clan for many years;
and that was what carried Wages there, to get some information
relative to some negroes that had been stolen and carried to
Louisiana near the Texas line. Wages also informed me that this
same man made all his property by stealing and kidnapping negroes
from Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.
Having obtained the information we wanted, we made preparation to
leave. We offered to pay our fare, but this was promptly refused. We
were well entertained; the old gentleman furnished us each with a
flask of good brandy, and, after thanking him and his family for their
kind, hospitable treatment, we bid adieu, and took our departure for
Texas.
We got on a steamboat and went up the Mississippi to the mouth
of Red river, and up that river to a landing called the New Springs.
There we paid our passage and went on shore, each with his pack
and his double-barrel gun. We stopped at a house about one mile
from the river, where we called for our dinner, which we got, and we
all remained there until next day, during which time we sold a
considerable amount of our goods at that house and in the
neighborhood, which made our packs much lighter. We left next day,
stopping at all houses, and selling our goods, which we did at a rapid
rate, as we had stolen them and were not sufficient judges of their
value to know what price to ask, and in consequence we often sold
them at one-half their value, and so soon got rid of them.
Having disposed of the principal part of our goods, about the
fourth day after we left the New Spring landing, we were
approaching the prairie county on the Texas border. We provided
ourselves with bread and salt; we had ammunition. Shortly before
night, we came to a small piece of woodland, by a ravine. There was
a large drove of cattle of all sizes there; McGrath shot a very fat two-
year old heifer; we skinned the hind quarters and tenderloin; we built
up a fire, salted some of our meat and roasted it by the fire and
feasted sumptuously. The wolves came near our camp and made a
dreadful noise, but at daybreak we shot and killed three and the
balance ran off. They had devoured all the heifer’s meat, but we had
provided sufficient for our journey that day. We set out and traveled
in a direction to find a settlement, then made about twenty-five miles
south of Shreveport. That was the place where Welter had told
Wages that the negroes were, that we were after. We traveled about
thirty miles that day, and suffered very much for water. We reached a
settlement a little before night, on some of the waters of the Sabine
River. It was the residence of some stock keepers; there were some
three or four families, and some fifteen or twenty Mexican drovers,
and horse thieves; they had just been to Natchitoches, and had a full
supply of rum; a few of them could speak English. We quartered with
them, and that night we opened the little remnant of our goods and
jewelry, and had a general raffle. By the next day we had realized
from our raffle, sufficient to purchase each of us a good Spanish
saddle and bridle, and a good Texas horse. We learned from one of
these Mexicans the residence of the man who owned the negroes
that we were after, and we also learned that he and his family were
strict members of the Methodist Church. Now it was that one of us
had to turn preacher, so as to reconnoiter around the place. Wages
and I put that on McGrath. We all mounted our horses and started,
having procured plenty of lassoes, &c., McGrath being an Irishman
and his tongue tipped with plenty of blarney.
We traveled for two days very moderately, and, our chief
employment was drilling McGrath, how to pray and sing, and give
that long Methodist groan, and “Amen.” He having made
considerable progress, we went to Natchitoches. McGrath entered
that town by one road, and Wages and myself by another. McGrath
went among a few of his brethren that evening.
To our astonishment it was posted at every corner, that the “Rev.
Mr. McGrath, from Charleston, South Carolina, would preach at the
Methodist Church that evening, at half-past seven.” We attended
church. McGrath took his stand in the pulpit. He made a very genteel
apology to his audience, saying he was much fatigued from his
travel; that he had caught cold and was very hoarse and could not
sing; but he read out the hymn. It was: “Hark from the tombs a
doleful sound.” One old brother pitched the tune to Old Hundred, and
they all chimed in, Wages and myself among the rest; Wages sang
bass and I tenor, and we all made that old church sound like distant
thunder. After singing, McGrath made a very good but short prayer;
he then took his text in the 16th chapter of St. Mark, at the verse
where Mary the mother, and Mary Magdalene found the stone rolled
from the door of the sepulchre. “And he said unto them, Be not
affrighted; ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified; he has
risen; he is not here; behold the place where they laid him.” He read
several verses in that chapter, and then made some very good
explanations relative to the parables, and prophesies on the coming
of the Messiah, and the mysterious way in which he disappeared,
and wound up his discourse by telling the audience that he had been
a great sinner in his young days, that it had been but a few years
since the Lord had called him to preach, and he thanked his God
that he was now able and willing to lay down his life upon the altar of
God; he then raved, and exhorted all to repent and turn to God; and
after raving about half an hour called all his hearers that wished to
be prayed for to come forward. The whole congregation kneeled
down; he prayed for them all, and finally finished, sang another hymn
and dismissed his congregation, and we all retired, Wages and
myself to a gaming table, and McGrath with some of his brethren.
Next day the members of the church there waited on McGrath to
know what was his pecuniary situation. He told them that he was
very poor, was on his way to see a rich relation of his, about two
hundred miles from there; that he carried his gun to keep off wild
beasts, etc. They made up money to buy him a fine suit of black, a
new saddle and saddle-bags and fifty dollars in cash. We remained
there two days, when McGrath left. Wages and I left by another road.
We all met a short distance from town and made the proper
arrangement for our operations. McGrath was to go on to the house
of this man that had the negroes, and there make what discoveries
were necessary. He was to join Wages and myself at San Antonio on
the first day of September following. Wages and I left in the direction
for the Red Land on the Irish bayou.

POISONING THE OVERSEER.

A few days after we passed the residence of an old bachelor who

had a large number of negroes; he was absent at Natchitoches and
had left his overseer in charge. We stopped there, and remained two
days; we procured some whisky from a grocery store a short
distance off; prepared some of it with poison, and induced the
overseer to drink freely. We gave him a full dose of the poison, and
before day on the third morning he was dead.
Meanwhile Wages and I had made arrangements to steal a likely
negro woman and two young negroes, a boy and girl, about ten
years of age, besides two of the finest horses on the place. We sent
out runners to let one or two of the neighbors know that the overseer
was dead; we had our negroes and horses concealed about five
miles distant, and about sunrise we offered to pay our bills and left,
pretending to go to New Orleans. After we had got out of sight of the
plantation we made a circuit and went to the place where the
negroes and horses were concealed. Having provided ourselves with
provisions, we remained secreted at that place all that day. That
night we started with our negroes and horses. Wages took the lead;
our horses and negroes were all refreshed. We traveled a brisk gait