Although Bettye Kearse spent decades employed as a pediatrician, she calls writing The Other Madisons: The Lost History of a President’s Black Family her life’s work.
“My mom would say, ‘Well, that’s how it was then,’ but since how ‘it was’ was wrong, I could not accept this as easily. I think it was painful for my mom to think that our foremothers had been raped, especially since there was little to nothing they could do to prevent it.”
“My family is exceptional in having a President in our lineage,” Kearse tells The Progressive from her home in New Mexico. “But that fact is actually not that important. Like most African American families in the United States, we had enslaved ancestors who were amazing people, with inner strength, inner balance, and a sense of hope that got them through terrible times. These qualities have been passed down to their descendants, including those of us alive today.”
In Kearse’s case, the transmission of facts and values came from her mother Ruby Madison Wilson (1918-2009), who told her daughter as much as she could about their origins. “Remember, you’re a Madison. You come from African slaves and a President,” she repeatedly implored.
The story—recounted orally by one person designated to be the family griot/griotte for eight generations—began when a young girl, named Mandy by her captors, was kidnapped from her village in West Africa and forced onto a slave ship. As Ruby told it, Mandy survived the Middle Passage and ended up in the Virginia home of James Madison Sr., where she spent the remainder of her life.
Even as a child, Kearse found the account of Mandy’s life simultaneously disturbing and thrilling. Later, however, at her mother’s request, she set out to tell the story in written form, with as much specificity as possible. The result: The Other Madisons.
Kearse’s quest for answers about Mandy’s life and the lives of numerous other foreparents took her to far-flung places, from Ghana to Montpelier, the site of the Madison family’s Virginia mansion, as well as to numerous archives and libraries throughout the United States. She also traveled to Lagos, Portugal, where the transatlantic slave trade began. Along the way, she consulted with dozens of experts and laypeople about slavery’s many manifestations.
The result is a richly detailed, nuanced, and poignant story—part memoir and part social history—that places the dual legacy of slavery and sexual violence at the center of America’s founding.
Sections of The Other Madisons are told from Mandy’s perspective (by way of a fictional diary pieced together by Kearse), and give the reader an intimate glimpse into the everyday indignities that slaves experienced.
“Over time, I began to feel very close to Mandy,” Kearse explains. “I sensed that I knew what she wanted me to know and share. When she speaks about the birth of her daughter, Coreen, I related [to that] because I’d also had a child. I was elated but I was also scared, feelings I thought Mandy shared.”
At the same time, there were stark and obvious differences in their circumstances. Kearse was married to a man she loved when her child was born. Conversely, when Ruby related the story of Coreen’s birth, she sidestepped the issue of paternity, making light of the fact that James Madison Sr. was the baby’s father.
Similarly, when decades later, his son, James Madison Jr.—the man who became the fourth President of the United States—impregnated Coreen, Ruby is matter-of-fact.
Kearse found this extremely upsetting. What’s more, Ruby’s mention of the Madison men “visiting” Mandy and Coreen did not sit well with Kearse. Instead, she uses the words “rape” and “incest” to tell the tale, a choice that made Ruby bristle.
“My mom thought we should be proud of being descended from President Madison, but it was hard for me to forgive him for owning people and taking advantage of them in the way that he did,” Kearse says. “My mom would say, ‘Well, that’s how it was then,’ but since how ‘it was’ was wrong, I could not accept this as easily. I think it was painful for my mom to think that our foremothers had been raped, especially since there was little to nothing they could do to prevent it.”
Kearse further notes that Ruby and other family members consistently referred to President Madison as a “good and great” leader and man.
“Yes, in some ways he was great,” Kearse says. “He helped establish the country, but he also knew that it was wrong to own people. He wrote that it was wrong several different times, but he did not free a single slave during his lifetime. He sold them. He split families apart and he allowed [his wife] Dolley to sell Jim, his own son. It made me angry.”
Did the President know that Coreen was related to him, I ask. “Everyone in the slave community was intimately involved in the Madison family’s life,” she says. “It’s hard to believe that James Jr. did not know that Coreen was his half-sister.”
After all, she says, the shameful power dynamics between “slave” and “master” were—and still are—hard to ignore.
As Kearse writes, “Our white ancestors laid the foundation for this country. But our dark-skinned ancestors built it. They worked the fields, nursed the babies, preached sermons, and fought in wars. They played music, owned businesses, cured sickness, and worked on railroads. They taught their children about God.”
Reckoning with this, she continues, is essential for the country to move forward and ensure that Black lives really do matter.
Kearse spent three decades researching and writing The Other Madisons, and despite the project’s emotional toll, says that she never thought about abandoning it. She describes walking in Coreen’s footsteps at Montpelier, visiting the slave cemetery when Mandy and Coreen were laid to rest, and meeting people who helped her fill in the gaps in the saga—to the extent possible—as exhilarating and humbling.
“I wanted to find the whole story and confront it,” Kearse says. “I am blessed that the tradition of oral history goes back thousands of years in Africa and crossed the Atlantic with the slaves. My family was careful to maintain that tradition in each generation. Unfortunately, the slavery piece of the story is very common for African Americans, and the legacy is never far behind us.”