The Quest of the Silver Fleece

Set in the post-Reconstruction rural South and the political corridors of Washington, D.C., this 1911 novel by W.E.B. Du Bois interweaves the lives of Black farmers, white landowners, Northern philanthropists, and political operatives around the symbolic center of cotton.

Bles Alwyn, a 15-year-old Black boy from Georgia, arrives alone at night in Tooms County, Alabama, searching for the Smith School, a school for Black students. Lost near a swamp, he follows wild music to a cabin and at dawn meets Zora, a wild girl of about 12, the daughter of Elspeth, an old woman the locals consider a conjure woman. They form an immediate bond. She points him toward the school, where Miss Sarah Smith, the school's white founder, admits him despite the institution's chronic poverty.

Miss Mary Taylor, a young Wellesley graduate from New Hampshire, arrives reluctantly to teach. Her brother, John Taylor, a chief clerk at a Wall Street cotton brokerage, has sent her partly to gather intelligence on the local cotton economy. Mary engages Bles in conversation about cotton cultivation, during which she tells him the Greek myth of the Golden Fleece. He connects the myth to the Cresswell family's vast cotton empire surrounding them.

Over the following months, Bles teaches Zora to read in the swamp. He proposes they grow their own extraordinary cotton on a hidden island deep in the swamp to fund Zora's education. At midnight on a moonless night, old Elspeth sows her ancient cotton seeds on the island with eerie incantations. Harry Cresswell, the 35-year-old son of Colonel St. John Cresswell, the county's biggest white landowner, visits the school and meets Mary, whom he begins courting. He warns her that Zora is morally disreputable and urges her expulsion. Miss Smith refuses.

In New York, John Taylor pursues a grand ambition: a cotton trust that would monopolize both the manufacture and raw production of cotton. He cultivates the widowed Mrs. Grey, whose fortune includes an interest in funding Negro education. Taylor proposes an alliance with the Cresswells, and Harry, recognizing their financial vulnerability, agrees to investigate.

The Silver Fleece, Bles and Zora's special swamp-grown cotton crop, sprouts and grows magnificently. Miss Smith draws Zora into better habits, and Zora transforms into a strikingly beautiful young woman. Their unspoken love deepens. Miss Smith receives word that Mrs. Grey intends to endow the school with $150,000 and takes out a mortgage to buy adjacent land, but the Cresswells block the sale. A visiting committee, which includes Mrs. Vanderpool, a wealthy New York socialite, offers the endowment on the condition that a board including Harry Cresswell control the funds. Miss Smith refuses, declaring Cresswell disqualified by his ties to the forces of evil in the community.

A week of rain threatens the Silver Fleece. Zora digs a canal to save the cotton, nearly killing herself. During her illness, Bles realizes he loves her. After she recovers, they declare their love. But the visiting committee encounters them embracing, and Cresswell calls Zora "notorious." Mary confirms the rumors to Bles: As a child, Zora was sexually exploited by white men at Elspeth's cabin before she understood what was happening. When Bles confronts Zora, she points toward Cresswell Oaks, the Cresswell plantation home, identifying those responsible. Unable to forgive, he leaves her.

The Cresswells cheat Zora of her cotton. Harry calculates that fabricated debts consume all its value, leaving her bound to the Cresswells as a peon. When he approaches her with predatory intent, she grips a rusty poker. Stripped of her cotton and her freedom, she goes to Miss Smith. Old Elspeth dies shortly after. Harry confesses his sins to Mary, blaming Elspeth for his failings, and Mary accepts his proposal. John Taylor has the Silver Fleece woven into cloth for the double wedding of Harry to Mary and John to Helen Cresswell, Harry's sister. Zora, now in Mrs. Vanderpool's service as a maid, embroiders the cloth and, upon learning it is her stolen cotton, locks it away. Helen's Paris gown arrives at the last moment, and Helen tells Zora to keep the Fleece cloth.

Bles arrives in Washington full of idealism. Senator Charles Smith, Miss Smith's brother, secures him a Treasury clerkship after his exam score was ignored due to race. Miss Caroline Wynn, a sophisticated Black schoolteacher, cultivates him as a political protégé, and their partnership deepens into romantic attachment. Meanwhile, Zora, traveling with Mrs. Vanderpool, undergoes an intellectual awakening and secretly works to advance Bles's career through Mrs. Vanderpool's political connections.

Bles delivers powerful speeches across Northern cities that deliver the Black vote to the Republican candidate. Miss Wynn maneuvers to have Bles appointed Register of the Treasury, a senior federal post, while Zora pushes for the even higher office of Treasurer. Bles proposes to Miss Wynn, and she accepts, though Zora's shadow hovers in his mind. Harry Cresswell, elected to Congress through a fraudulent vote count, opposes Bles's appointment. Trust brokers negotiate: The South gets control of Negro education and the defeat of a federal education bill that would have funded Black schools, in exchange for supporting the trust's legislative agenda.

Zora experiences a spiritual conversion at a small Black church and resolves to return South. The party demands Bles defend its abandonment of the education bill, with his appointment contingent on compliance. Zora sends him anonymous notes urging him to stand firm. He attacks the party for betraying Black educational rights, and the Senate rejects his nomination. Miss Wynn breaks their engagement and marries Sam Stillings, an obsequious political operative, for financial security. Mrs. Vanderpool's promise to protect Bles's appointment proves false: She allows it to fail to secure her husband's ambassadorship. Zora confronts her, and they part. Mrs. Vanderpool gives Zora a sealed check.

Zora returns to the Smith School and finds it near collapse. The check is for $10,000, exactly enough to pay off the mortgage. She buys 200 acres of Cresswell swamp to establish a cooperative Black farming settlement, writing the contract herself. She recruits tenants and overcomes opposition from a corrupt local preacher when an itinerant preacher turns the community to her cause. Over 100 people clear 20 acres in a single day.

Bles, disillusioned, returns South as the school's business manager and finds Zora transformed into a self-possessed leader. Mary Cresswell, exiled to the plantation after Harry banishes her, finds solace at Zora's settlement. A cotton mill brings poor white workers to town, and Colonel Cresswell allies with the new sheriff, stoking racial hatred. Zora sues the Cresswells for her cotton crop and wins. A mob marches on the school, but Bles organizes a nonviolent defense. In the darkness, the two wings of the mob mistake each other for Black defenders and fire on one another, fleeing in panic. Rob, one of the settlement's men, and Johnson, a Black man who has been informing for the Cresswells, are arrested and lynched.

Colonel Cresswell dies after recognizing his mixed-race granddaughter Emma and confessing his sins. His will leaves $200,000 and the Cresswell plantation to the Smith School, assuring its survival. Mary, believing Zora too devoted to her cause for marriage, tries to arrange a match between Bles and Emma. Zora, concealing her anguish, walks to the swamp in despair. She hears Bles behind her. He tells her he loves "the best woman in all the world." She asks, trembling, "Will you marry me, Bles?" He kneels before her as the moon rises over the swamp.