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Warning: the leading spoilers coming for the second episode of Outlander Season 4, called "Do No Harm".
Outlander drove the Frasers into a whole new world for their fourth season. Aside from hanging a peasant, this new world seemed like a great opportunity for them until the murderous attack on Stephen Bonnet. The circumstances of the Frasers were not the best at the approach of Jocasta Cameron and his River Run. The good news is that Jamie's aunt, Jocasta, welcomed Jamie, Claire and Young Ian with open arms. The bad news is that River Run is a plantation in North Carolina and that Jocasta owns over a hundred slaves.
Given that Claire is a twentieth-century woman and that Jamie knows all too well about being forced to work by an oppressive ruling class, neither was happy with the situation. slaves and even the young Ian did not consider them a property. . As if that was not enough for River Run to be serviced by slaves, Claire was forced to make a devastating choice between her modern sensibility and the general attitude to slavery in colonial America. Here is what happened.
Claire did not take long to get noticed at River Run by her attitude towards slavery. When meeting a slave named Phaedra, she asked him to call her Claire, and only changed her to "Mistress Claire" when the other people in the room were clearly amazed by her comment. Jocasta understood Claire's disgust for slavery and harassed her until Claire understood what was bothering her.
Claire's statement that she did not agree with the idea of keeping people as a property (while Phaedre was present to help her put Claire in the lane). One of Jocasta's old dresses had shocked Jocasta, who had asked her if Claire was a Quaker, because only the Quakers were known to defend such views. Claire covered herself enough by claiming that she had resumed her attitude towards slavery after dealing with Quakers.
The stakes became even more important when Jocasta used a party celebrating the arrival of Jamie, Claire and Young Ian to announce that she was designating Jamie as her heiress to River Run, which was the first day of the year. she had decided to do without consulting Jamie. Claire clearly explained to Jamie that she could not own slaves. Jamie suggested they release River Run slaves so they could do their bit to make the world a better place.
Unfortunately, Jamie quickly learned, thanks to Andrew MacNeil, another slave owner that freeing slaves was not as simple as declaring them free and remunerating them fairly. An owner had to prove by a petition that a slave had saved life in a fruitful way, and a very high fee was required to free the slaves. Furious, MacNeil told Jamie that their idea of freeing slaves was in danger.
Freeing slaves could mean problems for slave owners en masse in the area, and these would not accept Jamie's actions. According to MacNeil, others have already expressed similar ideas (and ideals) in the past and have disappeared. Jamie should not be discouraged, but they did not go much further in the discussion. The news arrived at the River Run sawmill, where a slave had cut off the ear of a white man.
Jamie and Claire rushed to the scene, with Jamie as a representative of Jocasta and Claire as a healer, trying to catch his ear. Upon their arrival, however, they discovered that the newly outmoded man and his friends were raising a slave named Rufus by a hook depressed in his abdomen.
Horrified, Jamie pulled out a pair of pistols and demanded that the men stop hanging Rufus on the hook. Claire then decided that it was more important to bring Rufus back to River Run for it to be neat than to put it back in the ear. More than one person pointed out to the Frasers that the law was not on Rufus' side, as any slave attacking and shedding the blood of a white man had to be hanged. The owners of the local plantation and other white men reacted badly to the action of the Frasers.
Claire did everything in her power to save Rufus. She managed to remove the hook and put it back on the path to healing. He woke up long enough to share the heartbreaking story of how he became a slave when he was kidnapped from Africa and separated from his beloved sister. All the signs seemed to indicate that Rufus had the physical strength to survive … but he had no right in life to let himself be done by the slave owners.
The other white men from the area formed an angry mob and stormed River Run. Jocasta had no choice but to stand in front of his own house and wait until Jamie produced Rufus. It was only until midnight, at which time Rufus would apparently be horribly tortured rather than just hanged now. Jamie went to see Claire and he rejected his suggestion to protect Rufus by saying that he had escaped.
Jamie revealed that the slaves who were working with Rufus would be punished for what he had done as he ran. There was no good choice, and he made a suggestion that shocked Claire and explained the title of the episode. He asked her if she could possibly calm Rufus on her way, as she had already done for Colum. Claire was pushed back to the prospect of ending the life of a person she was able to save, and her oath to do no harm was clearly present to her.
With rocks flying through the windows and a crowd wielding torches shouting at the blood out, Claire's oath for the 20th century was far from being the top priority. She gave Rufus a tea that she had smeared with poison and gave it to her, telling her that it would help her sleep. Crying, she spoke with him as he was starting to shut up, and he finally asked if she thought he would ever see his sister again. She said that he would do it and he died.
After Rufus' death, Jamie pulled him out of the angry house in front of the angry crowd. Not deterred by his death, the men lynched his corpse, dragging him high into a tree and leaving him there. Jocasta, Jamie, Claire, Ulysses and many other slaves had to witness what was happening.
Claire will probably not soon forget the men and the system that forced her to kill a man out of pity despite her oath not to hurt, and the death of Rufus probably means that the Frasers do not will not stay at River Run for too long. We had known for a long time that Season 4 was not going to unfold entirely in the Jocasta plantation and Claire would like to move away from slavery as soon as possible. They can leave River Run earlier than planned.
Frasers encounter obstacles when they leave River Run. Stephen Bonnet's attack (and the change of the book that will have an impact on a huge later plot) left them with no cash or gems to sell, and Jocasta might not be willing to provide them with leaving River Run behind her. while she clearly intends to carry out her planting.
Who knows? Perhaps the ordeal with the disgust of Claire and Rufus for River Run with all her slaves will bring Jocasta to the idea of letting them a little easier. Maybe young Ian must continue to bring a Skunk sprayed Rollo into the house for Jocasta to want them to leave! We will have to wait and see. New episodes of Outlander air on Sundays at 8 pm ET on Starz.
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