Washington Black and Medwin Harris’s Relationship

Washington Black and Medwin Harris’s Relationship is a companionship shaped by loneliness, racial hostility, and mutual reserve. Medwin offers Washington practical understanding and relief from painful memories, yet his appetite for fights culminates in a sudden attack on two men; the episode makes plain why Washington values his company and fears the violence that comes with it.

Meeting in Nova Scotia

After leaving Shelburne, where insecurity and the threat of being kidnapped back into slavery kept him watchful, Washington settled near the Bedford Basin. He found work and, in December 1834, moved into a shabby rooming house overseen by Medwin. Medwin’s family had arrived in Nova Scotia as refugees in 1815, and he had later worked as a waiter at a hotel near Niagara Falls. Although he had earned as much and worked under conditions equal to those of his white colleagues there, he returned to the place where he had grown up and took pride in becoming caretaker of the rundown house.

Medwin presented himself with a joking confidence about staying put: he expected to remain even after the rats abandoned the building. He would spit on his boot and polish it with his handkerchief, a small, repeated gesture that accompanied his wry self-possession. Washington does not call him a friend without qualification. Their bond rests less on intimacy than on drinking together, getting into trouble, and keeping one another company.

Uneasy companionship

When thoughts of Big Kit, Titch, or Philip pressed on him, Washington sought Medwin out in his rooms. Medwin’s jokes could lighten Washington’s spirits, but Washington did not tell him about John Willard, and Medwin did not offer much personal disclosure of his own. Their silences and omissions were part of the relationship, not evidence of complete trust.

Medwin was five years older than Washington, by his own account, and strikingly tall, with heavy forearms and a broad neck. His quiet, almost meek gestures contrasted with his imposing build, leaving Washington with the sense that he watched and measured people. Medwin gave clever, useful advice and understood Washington’s silences even better than Big Kit had, but Washington remained unsure of him. He judged Medwin neither wholly bad nor good, and connected that moral ambiguity to the hard conditions under which men in Nova Scotia had learned to survive.

Conflict and violence

The relationship takes a more dangerous turn when Washington and Medwin celebrate news of the apprenticeship system in the British West Indies, which Washington mistakenly understands as proof that slavery has truly ended. In the tavern, two white men insult Washington and Medwin. Washington feels Medwin begin to smile as the exchange intensifies; when one of the men insists that he is finished talking, Medwin challenges the claim and smiles across at Washington.

Washington senses that violence is coming. Medwin smashes his glass on the edge of the table and uses the broken glass to attack both men. The abruptness of the act exposes a divide in their temperaments: Washington tries to avoid conflict, while Medwin seeks fights as readily as he seeks food. Their shared exposure to racism does not make their responses identical, and Medwin’s violent intervention is neither simple protection nor a source of uncomplicated comfort for Washington.

Distance and significance

Washington understands the incident as part of a wider atmosphere of lawlessness. He sees racial hostility and violence among Black people alike, and feels that the distance he has travelled from Faith Plantation has not been as great as he hoped. Although he still enjoys Medwin’s company at times, he increasingly keeps to himself and goes out at dawn to draw by the inlet, taking his paints, leads, and a collapsible chair with a homemade easel. In those solitary hours, the past seems to belong to another life.

The friendship therefore remains real but limited: Medwin can ease Washington’s loneliness and offer an unusual attentiveness to his silences, yet Washington does not surrender his caution or make Medwin his confidant. Their contrast also clarifies Washington’s changing needs. Where Medwin gravitates toward confrontation, Washington seeks distance, solitude, and the renewed practice of drawing. The relationship registers both the sustaining force of companionship and its limits in a world where racialized danger and accumulated hardship shape how much trust either man can give.