Word: harkness
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Despite his own careful pains to avoid sounding too intelligent, Nat became disgusted and enraged when his fellow Negroes ingratiated on whites. Take this passage, for example, with Nat, Hark (another slave), and old Judge Cobb...
...Yondah, massah," Hark said. He pointed to the shed several yards away, directly at the side of the shop, where the cider barrels lay in a moist and dusty rank in the shadows past the open door. "Red bar'l, massah. Dat's de bar'l fo' a gentleman, massah." When the desire to play the obsequious coon came over him, Hark's voice became so plump and sweet that it was downright unctuous. "Marse Joe, he save dat bar'l for de fines' gentlemens...
...Brandy is de bottles on de shelf," said Hark. He began to scramble to his feet. "I fix de brandy fo' you, massah." But again Cobb motioned him back with a brisk wave of his hand.... Something about the man offended me, filled me with the sharpest displeasure, and it wasn't until he limped unsteadily past us through the crackling brown patch of weeds toward the cider press, saying not another word, that I realized it wasn't the man himself who annoyed me so much as it was Hark's manner in his presence--the unspeakable bootlicking Sambo...
...this same Hark who, according to Nat, "gave expression to that certain inward sense that every Negro possesses when, dating from the age of twelve or ten or earlier, he becomes aware that heis only merchandise, goods, in the eyes of all white people devoid of character or moral sense or soul." Hark called this feeling "black-assed," and it summed up the numbness and dread in every Negro...
...Hark...