Here you see an image from around 1800 of one Chloe Russell, the purported author of _The Complete Fortune Teller and Dream Book_. Only a handful of copies exist today, but they provide a tantalizing glimpse into the tastes of some Americans for the occult, and an association of black Americans having access to magical knowledge.
We know that Chloe Russell was a real person, because census records show that a woman of African descent by that name owned property in Boston. What we aren’t sure of, however, is whether she wrote a book like this. In one edition, an alleged autobiography of Chloe Russell tells of her harrowing kidnapping in Africa’s Sierra Leone, of her abuse by white slave masters, of her father’s ghost appearing to tell Chloe about her prophetic powers, and her escape from slavery.
The details of her “autobiography” contain so many impossibilities that scholars aren’t sure she even wrote it — casting doubt on whether she authored the other parts of the book, which are all about dream interpretation and magical ways to get one’s will accomplished: marrying well is of central concern.
Regardless of Chloe Russell’s actual involvement, her book was used — the copies are well-worn. Who was interested in such matters? The 19th-century spiritualist movement attracted many women, but an interest in Chloe Russell also speaks to an idea that black women could be an authoritative source for such magical traditions.
