“12 Years A Slave,” The Character Of Patsey, And Why I Wish Death To The Term “Negro Bed Wench”

As seen in 12 Years, there was little glory and salvation to be obtained in being “bed wench” to massa. There was certainly no glory to be had for the black enslaved “wench,” and her two children – one light skinned and the other her own dark brown complexion, who found themselves being sold away right with a stolen Platt. She too had kept the affections of a massa, who occasionally showered her, and their shared child, with extra trinkets more than he would the other enslaved men and women. But after drawing the ire of her master’s other daughter, she would have to bare the emotional toll of not only being sold away but having her children ripped from her arms as Platt (Northup) fiddled a song to assuage the troublesome ears of the potential buyers. Being a bed wench offered escape from hard labor on the field for Mistress Shaw, an enslaved black woman, who was also Patsey’s friend at the neighboring plantation. However, it didn’t stop Shaw – through gritted teeth and a forced smile – from wishing death upon her master, despite her favor with him as his “common-law-wife.”

And being bed mistress to massa certainly was of no benefit to Patsey, who stood powerlessly in the middle of a tug-of-war involving an obsessive husband and his spiteful wife, who often took her anger at her abusive husband out on the slave. Patsey’s status as a bed wench gave her no advantage in the power to determine whether or not she wanted to bed the always liquored up Massa Epps, who occasionally slapped her around during his penetration. There was no hi-fives for “putting it on massa” from Mistress Mary, who instead took pleasure in repeatedly scaring her face – first by a goblet, then by fingernail to the cheek and finally a gauge to eyeball. And her status as the apple of massa’s eye could not save her from being tied to a post and whipped bareback “down to the white meat,” for her malfeasance of leaving the plantation to borrow a bar of soap from Mistress Shaw – soap, which had been denied to her (and granted to the other slaves) by Mistress Mary, who wanted to keep her stinky and funky as a deterrent for her rapist husband. There was no benefit in being the bed wench because massa was under zero obligation to honor or respect any promise, pledge or gift for her “services.” In fact, all of the enslaved “negro bed wenches,” like other slaves, had no rights, which a white man had to respect. The only thing she could do was grin and bear it, even if at one point she would ask Northup to help her take her own life.

Steve McQueen and John Ridley (also esteemed black historian Henry Louis Gates, who consulted on the film) did an excellent job giving some much needed depth to not just Patsey as a character, but the countless untold, overlooked and revised stories of black women enslaved, who had to bear the brunt of not just massa but his mistress as well. Through the harsh telling and realistic depictions on-screen, we are faced with our lightbulb moment that there were no prostitutes on the plantation–just slaves.  It certainly happened to the handful of snickering and snarky movie watchers, who faded to silence as Patsey’s story progressed.

Patsey is going to haunt you for a while – not because she was a well-drawn character but because she was inspired from a real person, possibly one of your ancestors, who suffered and endured greatly – in all respects – through the unwilling servitude of the building of this country. And I also hope that her spirit haunts those, who would have us believe that slavery was the equivalent of walking off a job you hate or sleeping with the boss to get a promotion. If it was up to the real life Patsey, she probably would not have wanted to be a “bed wench” to Massa Epps or any other massa. But it wasn’t up to her, was it?