A Mercy: Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

Chapter 2 opens with a third-person narrator describing a man (it is not yet clear who this is, but it turns out later to be Jacob) wading through the ocean from a boat to the shore. When he arrives on the beach, he turns and waves at the crew of the sloop that has dropped him off, but he can no longer see the boat in the fog. The fog is thick and golden with the sun behind it.

Jacob walks from the beach through the forest to a village nestled between two plantations nearby. There Jacob secures a horse named Regina. He signs his name on the papers: “Jacob Vaark.” Jacob rides along the beach to an old Lenape trail, where he slows because the path is dangerous.

Jacob thinks of how, a quarter century before, a mix of slaves and indentured servants from all the races rebelled against the wealthy white landowners in the area. The rebellion failed, and the fallout from the conflict resulted in the slaughter of natives and a slew of new laws restricting rights. These include laws forbidding black people from assembling, traveling, and bearing arms, allowing white people to kill black people without any recourse, and compensating owners for a slave’s death. As the narrator notes, this “separated and protected all whites from all others forever.” Jacob disagrees with the new laws, which he sees as cruel and unjust.

Jacob thinks that it is “1682 and Virginia was still a mess.” Because of the land skirmishes Jacob must be careful traveling alone, despite the privilege of his white skin. Jacob, who is carrying money and only one knife, is a target. Wanting to get out of Virginia and into Maryland, he urges his horse to go faster. Jacob only stops to get off his horse twice, once to free a baby raccoon caught in a trap. Jacob and the horse both sweat in the October heat. He thinks that he might as well be in Barbados, where he almost moved. His idea of moving to the island did not come to fruition, however, because an uncle died and left him over a hundred acres of farmland in the North.

Although the weather is hot and humid, and his travels are long, Jacob enjoys his journey, admiring the beautiful forests, the breathtaking shorelines, the abundance of wild food. Jacob did not come to North America to get rich, but rather because of his desire for adventure. Jacob thinks of himself as a self-made man. Having started as an orphaned child, Jacob is now an independent landowner. Jacob relishes the challenges of life in the New World.

Jacob looks around the landscape, thinking how the land has frequently changed hands, from native to Swedish to Dutch control. There is hardly any point in knowing to whom the land belongs, since it changes hands so often. Instead, Jacob thinks of the land in terms of the native tribes it belonged to originally. After navigating his way through the native villages and finding his way based on the familiar geography, Jacob arrives at last in Maryland.

Unlike the rest of the colonies, Maryland belongs entirely to the king. While the other colonies only do business with the country that owns them, Maryland is open to all foreign markets, making it a center for trade. Notably, Maryland is also Catholic. Jacob finds Maryland’s Catholicism, and the excess and luxury that he associates with it, to be totally appalling. Still, Jacob continues to do business in Maryland, where the slave and tobacco trade affords for massive profits.

Jacob is in Maryland because he has been invited to dinner at the house of D’Ortega, a plantation owner with whom he has done some business. The invitation is unexpected, as Jacob has previously interacted only with the owner’s clerk. Jacob thinks that the personal invitation must mean that something is wrong.

As Jacob arrives at the plantation, which is named “Jublio,” he is impressed by its grandeur. Jacob takes in the smell of tobacco and the slave quarters in the back of the house. On the house’s veranda, a boy greets Jacob and, after he dismounts, takes his horse to the stable. Jacob walks up the house’s front steps and then descends again to get another look at the impressive structure. He admires the house’s many windows and the fact that it is made of stone.

Jacob goes back up the steps and a servant (presumably a slave) opens the front door. Jacob explains that he is there to see D’Ortega. The servant takes Jacob’s hat and leads him into the parlor, where D’Ortega is waiting for him.

Jacob greets D’Ortega and admires his fine clothes. Jacob drinks a beer and makes small talk. D’Ortega quickly cuts to the chase, informing Jacob that his finances are in dire straits—a third of the “cargo” on his slave ship has died of fever, and he was then fined for throwing the bodies in the bay. D’Ortega decided to keep his ship in the harbor and wait for a new shipment of slaves from Lisbon to replenish the slaves who died before sailing on to Barbados. The ship, however, sunk, drowning everyone on board except the crew and four slaves. D’Ortega asks Jacob for more credit and more time to repay the money that Jacob lent to him.

During dinner, Jacob feels awkward, comparing his own humble outfit to D’Ortega’s fine clothes, and worrying about his table manners. The meal begins with a prayer. Jacob tries to focus on the food, but everything is overcooked and the wine is watered down. At dinner, D’Ortega’s sons are quiet, but D’Ortega’s wife talks incessantly, making meaningless conversation. The D’Ortegas tell Jacob that their work as slave traders is God’s work, because the Angolan slaves they are “caring” for are often ill or deviant. D’Ortega explains to Jacob that Angola is a Portuguese colony, praising its beauty and Portugal’s.

Jacob learns that D’Ortega, a fortuneless third son, went to Angola in the first place to work in the slave trade before moving to America and amassing his wealth there. The D’Ortegas have six children, which makes Jacob, who is now childless, very jealous. Jacob’s children have all died, leaving him without any heir. Jacob’s jealousy makes him search for flaws in the D’Ortegas’ marriage, observing meanly that their mutual vanity makes them well suited for each other.

Jacob thinks that D’Ortega’s opulent lifestyle shows how he has gotten himself into debt. He thinks that D’Ortega’s wife is overdressed and that the fact that they are burning candles in the middle of the day is wasteful. Jacob sees the couple exchanging devious looks and wonders what they are communicating. Jacob no longer feels embarrassed about being disheveled from traveling because the D’Ortegas ‘style is so grotesquely over-the-top.

Jacob thinks about his own wife, Rebekka, comparing her humbleness favorably to D’Ortega’s wife. Jacob remembers seeing Rebekka for the first time as she disembarked from the ship that carried her across the Atlantic. Jacob had been expecting a much less beautiful woman, and seeing Rebekka for the first time was a pleasant surprise. Jacob thinks Rebekka is the ideal mate: hardworking, beautiful, and cheerful. However, after the deaths of her children, Rebekka has become much more melancholy. Still, she always does her duties on the couple’s farm reliably and without complaint. Anyway, Jacob thinks, Rebekka is still young, and will be able to have more children.

Dessert comes, and then D’Ortega offers to take Jacob on a tour of the estate. As they walk, Jacob admires the various plaster buildings of the plantation. He notes that, although D’Ortega has described the financial disasters that have befallen him, he still has not told Jacob how he plans to repay him. After the estate tour, it becomes clear that all D’Ortega has left to offer is slaves.

Jacob refuses D’Ortega’s offer of slaves, but D’Ortega insists that if Jacob will not use the slaves on his own farm, he can always sell them. Jacob does not like the idea of this, because he objects morally to trading directly in slaves. Still, he allows D’Ortega to line up his slaves in front of him, so D’Ortega can tell Jacob about their respective talents. Jacob takes in the glazed looks in the slaves’ eyes.

Jacob suddenly feels sick. He is unsure whether it is from the smell of tobacco or the food he has just eaten. Jacob tells D’Ortega he will not accept slaves as payment, since he does not want to go through the trouble of transporting and managing them. After all, Jacob is used to funding men who deal in the slave trade, not partaking in the trade directly himself. D’Ortega offers to arrange everything for Jacob.

Jacob begins to grow angry. He knows that if he does not take D’Ortega’s offer, he may never see the money D’Ortega owes him, because the local courts will favor D’Ortega. Jacob feels that D’Ortega knows this, and is disgusted by what he perceives as D’Ortega’s aristocratic complacency. Jacob thinks that D’Ortega has probably never done any hard labor himself, saying there was “something beyond Catholic in him, something sordid and overripe.” He thinks he would never socialize with Catholics outside of business.

As they approach the cookhouse, Jacob sees a woman standing in the doorway, holding a baby and hiding a girl behind her skirts. Jacob points to her and tells D’Ortega that he will take her. D’Ortega is clearly startled. He tells Jacob it is impossible, because the woman is the family’s main cook. Jacob, suspecting that D’Ortega has some other investment in the woman, pushes D’Ortega, saying he promised Jacob any slave he wanted. D’Ortega tells Jacob to look at the other female slaves he owns, and Jacob threatens to sue, though knowing full well that a lawsuit would be decided in D’Ortega’s favor.

Jacob then changes tactics, telling D’Ortega he will have to look for another lender. D’Ortega panics, knowing that his credit is so bad that no one else will lend money to him. D’Ortega tries again to convince Jacob that slaves are a good replacement for money to repay his debts. Jacob reminds him that he is not a slave trader and adds in an insult about Catholics.

D’Ortega’s hand moves toward his scabbard, and Jacob wonders if he will attack him, kill him, and then claim self-defense to rid himself of his debt. The two men lock eyes. Jacob turns his back on D’Ortega to convey his scorn for his cowardly behavior, and walks over to the cookhouse door where the woman is standing.

The little girl behind the woman’s skirts steps out into Jacob’s view. She is wearing a pair of shoes that are too big for her, and the sight of them makes Jacob laugh. The woman looks at Jacob desperately and begs him to take her daughter instead of herself. Jacob looks up at her, sees the terror in her eyes, and thinks that slavery is “the most wretched business.”

D’Ortega jumps at the opportunity to give Jacob the girl instead of her mother. Although Jacob refuses, he begins to think that Rebekka might enjoy the girl’s presence around the farm. The girl is about the age of their recently deceased daughter, Patrician, who died after being kicked in the head by a horse. D’Ortega offers to send the girl to Jacob’s farm on a sloop, in the company of a local priest. Ultimately Jacob agrees to take the girl, and they draw up papers legalizing the trade.

Jacob leaves the plantation, eager to get away from D’Ortega. As he waves a final goodbye, he once again admires the fine house. Having confronted the gentry for the first time, Jacob realizes that he too could have a house that luxurious. Jacob thinks about the fact that D’Ortega’s lifestyle is only made possible through slavery, and disdains his means of making a living. Jacob is determined to make his own fortune without becoming directly involved in the slave trade and deviating from his sense of what is right.

Jacob pushes his horse to go faster so he can get to a tavern to sleep before nightfall, looking forward to a drink and a warm bed. When he arrives in town, he gives his horse to a man to be stabled and walks toward the tavern. On his way, he sees a man violently beating a horse to its knees. Before Jacob can say anything, a group of sailors pull the man away. Jacob is furious, “not only because of pain inflicted on the horse, but because of the mute, unprotesting surrender” in its eyes.

At the tavern Jacob listens to a fiddler and piper play music, and sings along. Two women (presumably prostitutes) enter the tavern, and Jacob avoids them, having tired of brothels “years ago.”

Jacob eavesdrops on the people around him as they discuss the price of sugar and rum, which is much higher than that of tobacco. He joins the men at their table and listens to one who seems particularly knowledgeable, Peter Downes. He talks about Barbados. Jacob asks how they manage all the slaves, and Downes tells Jacob that they ship in more all the time, and new slaves are constantly being born. Jacob tells Downes that he has heard that whole estates are sometimes destroyed when disease sweeps through the slave population, and asks what they will do when the labor supply dwindles. Downes responds that it will not dwindle, since the slave trade is still thriving.

Jacob responds that he thinks the slave trade is a “degraded business,” and Downes tells him that sugar cane just grows on its own, with very little labor necessary and no crop failure. He emphasizes the fast fortune a person can make in the sugar and rum industry. Jacob laughs, thinking that Downes, who looks worse for wear, has clearly not benefited from that supposedly easy profit. But despite this thought, Jacob decides to look into getting involved in the rum industry.

Jacob eats dinner and reserves a bed. Jacob thinks about his day, deciding that D’Ortega will probably never repay him the money he is due. However, he thinks that if the king in England changes back to a Protestant king, he may have a shot at suing D’Ortega and winning.

Jacob’s thoughts return to the child he has acquired from D’Ortega. He hopes Rebekka will like her. Jacob knows that he decided to take the child because of his own tough childhood. Jacob was an orphan, and so he knows the difficulty of being a child without an adult for protection. Jacob’s mother died in childbirth, and his father, a Dutchman, left him with only his last name. Jacob lived in a poorhouse before becoming a runner for a law firm, a job that led him to climb the social ladder. Because of his upbringing, Jacob harbors a soft spot for marginalized children.

Because of this sympathy, ten years ago Jacob took on a girl called Sorrow that a lumberjack found nearly drowned on a riverbank. At the time, Jacob needed the extra help anyway, since Rebekka was pregnant. Jacob’s land, once part of a Dutch settlement, stands alone in a community of religious Separatists. Jacob’s land inheritance was a welcome surprise, since he liked the idea of farming.

On top of his farm life, Jacob began trading, but his preference is for farming. Because his trading brings him far away from the farm for long periods, Jacob bought female slaves to help Rebekka. Jacob thinks of his acquisition of the slave girl, like the acquisition of Sorrow, as “rescues.” Only the third slave he owns, Lina, was, in Jacob’s view, an “outright and deliberate” purchase.

Jacob walks as far as possible away from town to the beach. He looks out at the water and then places his hands in the ocean, washing them clean. He then walks back to the inn, setting out a new plan for himself. He thinks that, since farming has not worked especially well for him, he will invest in a sugar plantation in Barbados. After all, Jacob thinks, it will be different than D’Ortega’s plantation in Maryland, being so far removed. Jacob goes to bed in the inn, sleeping well and dreaming of a huge house.