The Color of Equality: The Story of a Failed American Colony

In 1861 the family of sixteen year-old free born Miriam Whitfield, a mixed race girl of Spencer, New York, becomes caught in a tangled web of circumstances. The country is divided by the Civil War, and her father, denied the right to enlist because of his race, decides to follow the recommendation of the Lincoln Administra-tion and emigrate to Haiti to form a colony. Life in the colony becomes increasingly harsh as it is beset by unexpected challenges and an epidemic of yellow fever. One of Miri’s few sources of pleasure and pride is helping her father care for the family beehives. When President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation and permits the recruitment of colored soldiers, Miri’s father decides to return to Spencer. Though she wants to go home, Miri disagrees with her father’s intention to enlist. Her pregnant mother is too ill to travel, and when political unrest within the Haitian government forces her father to leave without the family, things go from bad to worse. Miri must assume the roles of nurse and homemaker. She has to manage the family beehives and harvest honey for other families. She collects hives abandoned by absent or dead owners, becomes recognized as an expert beekeeper, and reaches a new level of maturity and resourcefulness. When the war ends her father’s fate is unknown, and Miri sells her entire supply of honey to pay passage for the family to return to New York. The Color of Equality is based on the experiences of the author’s great-grandparents and their children, and represents an untold chapter of African-American history.