Paul C. Howell: The Last Relative Slave in Rio Cortez’s Golden Ax

Overview

Paul C. Howell is a central ancestral figure in Rio Cortez’s 2022 poetry collection Golden Ax. Though he never appears as a speaking character, his presence haunts the book’s emotional and historical landscape. Cortez introduces him in the Author’s Note as her second or third great‑grandfather—an enslaved man from Louisiana who, after emancipation, migrated west and became the first Black police detective in Utah. The poem specifically dedicated to him, “Questions of the Last Relative Slave” (Chapter 34), directly addresses Howell but offers no reply, leaving his inner life suspended in historical silence. Howell embodies the book’s core tension between documented fact and the unknowable interiority of an enslaved person.

Plot Role

Howell does not drive a narrative plot in the conventional sense. Instead, his role is that of a foundational ancestor whose choices enabled the speaker’s existence. According to the Author’s Note, Howell’s post‑Reconstruction migration to Utah—possibly inspired by the California Gold Rush—set the family on a path that led to Cortez’s own girlhood in the Wasatch Mountains. The poem “Questions of the Last Relative Slave” functions as a lyrical address that breaks the fourth wall of memory: it asks Howell two questions about his relationship to nature (storms, wind, trees) and receives no answer. This structural choice positions Howell as a figure of both historical recovery and unresolvable mystery. He is the “last relative slave” chronologically, the one generation closest to freedom yet still bound by silence.

Motivations and Traits Shown Through Actions

The book provides very few explicit actions from Howell’s life. Cortez states that he became the first Black police detective in Utah—an act of professional achievement in a predominantly white and often hostile environment. That choice implies resilience, ambition, and a willingness to operate within systems of power. However, Cortez does not elaborate on how he obtained the position or what his day‑to‑day duties were. The poem “Questions of the Last Relative Slave” suggests a more ambiguous inner life: the speaker wonders whether Howell could “rejoice after storms” and find peace in “boughless husks / butchered by the wind,” and whether he loved that same destructive wind. These questions (my interpretation) hint at a capacity for paradoxical feeling—finding beauty in violence, or experiencing contradictory emotions toward nature that mirrored the trauma of enslavement. The lack of any recorded answer leaves Howell’s personality open; we know only that he survived and advanced, but we do not know what he felt.

Chronological Arc

Howell’s chronology is sketched across three key moments in the outline:

1. Enslavement in Louisiana – Implied in the Author’s Note: “My family was once enslaved in Louisiana. After Reconstruction, the first generation that was free… went West.” Howell was part of that enslaved generation.
2. Migration West – Likely after the Civil War, he traveled to Utah, perhaps drawn by economic opportunity following the Gold Rush.
3. First Black Police Detective in Utah – This is the only concrete public achievement mentioned. No date is given, but it likely occurred in the late 19th or early 20th century.

Cortez does not sequence these events in a linear narrative; instead, she presents them as fragments. Howell’s son Abner Howell (third great‑grandfather) is more textually present as an early Black Mormon convert. Paul C. Howell remains a shadowy pivot between slavery and freedom.

Relationships

• Abner Howell (son): The Author’s Note describes Abner as an early Black convert to the Mormon church, a decision that created “complex tensions around race and faith” within the family. Paul C. Howell’s relationship with his son is not detailed, but Abner’s conversion suggests a generational shift: the father lived through slavery and became a police detective; the son turned to a faith that would, for decades, bar Black men from priesthood.
• Byrdie Lee Howell Langon (great‑great‑aunt, writer of a family history pamphlet): Byrdie appears in Chapter 3, “Far Enough,” honored by her pastor. She is a keeper of Black Salt Lake history and thus a bridge between Howell and Cortez.
• The speaker (Cortez): The direct address in “Questions of the Last Relative Slave” creates a one‑way relationship. The speaker yearns to know Howell’s emotional truth but receives silence. This reflects the broader theme of gaps in genealogical knowledge (e.g., Chapter 48, “Family Tree at Earth’s Surface,” which ends with the speaker losing the impulse to count names).

Key Decisions and Consequences

Cortez does not portray Howell making any explicitly moral choices. The only decision we can attribute to him with confidence is his migration. The poem’s unanswered questions underscore how much we cannot know.

Themes and Symbol Connections

• Afropioneerism / Afrofrontierism: Howell is the archetypal Afropioneer in Cortez’s terms. The Author’s Note defines these terms as describing “my family ancestry and experience” in the West. Howell’s move westward and his professional accomplishment exemplify the physical and spiritual settlement of the frontier.
• Memory and Ancestry: Howell appears in “Questions of the Last Relative Slave” as a direct address. The poem’s failure to get a reply highlights the limits of memory—especially when an ancestor was enslaved and records are sparse. This echoes “Family Tree at Earth’s Surface,” where the speaker searches archives and oral tradition but ends by embracing emotional connection over factual completeness.
• Ecological Grief and Nature: The poem’s images—storms, boughless trees, wind—tie the violence of slavery to natural destruction. Howell’s hypothetical feelings about nature mirror the ambiguous relationship enslaved people often had with the land they were forced to work. The wind that butchers trees could symbolize both freedom (uncontrollable, moving) and trauma (destructive, indifferent).
• Identity and Duality: Howell lived through slavery and later became a law‑enforcement officer—two roles that seem contradictory. His life embodies the duality of survival within oppressive structures. The poem’s refusal to resolve this duality leaves it as a question.
• Motherhood and Fear (less direct): Howell is not a mother, but his story is part of the maternal lineage Cortez traces. The “Last Relative Slave” title positions him as the final enslaved ancestor before freedom, a threshold that the speaker crosses to imagine a future.

Book‑Specific Questions and Answers

1. Why does Cortez address Paul C. Howell directly in “Questions of the Last Relative Slave,” but never give him a voice?

Cortez likely chooses direct address to emphasize that Howell’s interiority is lost to history. Giving him a voice would be a fiction that the book consciously avoids. The poem’s unanswered questions mirror the real silence of the archive. This aligns with the collection’s theme that genealogical research often reaches a point where imagination must substitute for fact.

2. What is the significance of the “storm” and “wind” imagery in the poem for Howell?

The storm and wind represent both the violence of slavery (destruction, loss) and the possibility of finding peace after trauma. The question “did he love the wind?” suggests that an enslaved person might have felt a complex affection for the very forces that helped destroy their oppressors—or, conversely, that the wind reminded them of uncontrollable suffering. The image is deliberately ambiguous, leaving interpretation open.

3. How does Paul C. Howell’s position as the “last relative slave” distinguish him from other enslaved ancestors in the book?

He is the closest in time to emancipation, making him a transitional figure. While earlier enslaved ancestors are unnamed (e.g., the “Nameless mother” in Chapter 48), Howell has a surname and a known profession, yet still remains voiceless. This makes his silence especially poignant—he is almost knowable, but not quite.

4. Does Cortez portray Howell as a hero, or is the portrayal more critical?

The portrayal is neither heroic nor critical; it is inquisitive. Cortez presents his accomplishments (first Black detective) as fact, but she does not celebrate them as unequivocal triumphs. Instead, she dwells on what she cannot know about his feelings—like whether he loved the wind after storms. This balanced treatment respects his achievements while acknowledging that historical records flatten human complexity.

5. How does the poem “Questions of the Last Relative Slave” connect to Cortez’s concept of Afropioneerism?

Afropioneerism, as defined in the Author’s Note, is both a physical settling of the West and an imaginative act. The poem’s speculative questions (“Would he rejoice after storms?”) are acts of imagination that try to reclaim Howell’s inner life from silence. By asking without answering, Cortez honors the Afrofrontier spirit of envisioning a past that cannot be fully recovered, thereby “imagining ourselves into existence,” as she writes.

For further analysis of related themes, see the pages on Afropioneerism, Memory and Ancestry, and the book’s ending explained.