The Quadroons

"The Quadroons" is a short story written by American writer Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880) and published in The Liberty Bell in 1842.

The influential short story depicts the life and death of a mixed-race woman and her daughter in early nineteenth century America, a slave-owning society.

The two main characters, Rosalie, a "quadroon", and her husband Edward, a "Georgian," are living together in "a marriage sanctioned by Heaven, though unrecognized on earth"[5] Rosalie, as a partly African-American woman, cannot legally marry a White man, but they live together as if they are man and wife, and she makes no legal claim on her common-law husband.

Edward develops political ambition, and for leverage he marries a wealthy white woman, the daughter of an important politician, essentially destroying the marriage between him and Rosalie.

Xarifa had been taken care of by teachers including George Elliot, a young man hired by her father, but Edward becomes an alcoholic due to the guilt he feels after Rosalie's death.

Afterward, Xarifa's owner, having lost his patience, rapes her and she takes her own life--for the tragic mulatta, sexual violence and death are the only options.

George Elliot, their daughter's music teacher, is killed in the attempt to escape, and Xarifa commits suicide after being raped by the man who bought her.

[3] Child's works tackled economical, social, racial and sexual issues that provoked movements inside and outside the literary world.