American Negro Slavery by Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

U >> Ulrich Bonnell Phillips >> American Negro Slavery

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46

[Footnote 27: Edward J. Forstall, _The Agricultural Productions of
Louisiana_ (New Orleans, 1845).]

[Footnote 28: _Harper's Magazine_, VII, 755.]

[Footnote 29: _DeBoufs Review_, XI, 401.]

[Footnote 30: Olmsted, _Seaboard Slave States_, pp. 90, 91.]

[Footnote 31: W.H. Russell, _My Diary North and South_ (Boston, 1863), pp
272, 273, 278.]

[Footnote 32: Robert Russell, _North America, Its Agriculture and Chwate_
(Edinburgh, 1857), p. 272.]

[Footnote 33: A. de Puy Van Buren, _Jottings of a Year's Sojourn in the
South_ (Battle Creek, Mich., 1859), pp. 84, 318.]

[Footnote 34: Olmsted, _Seaboard Slave States_, pp. 550, 551.]

Truancy was a problem in somewhat the same class with disease, disability
and death, since for industrial purposes a slave absent was no better than
a slave sick, and a permanent escape was the equivalent of a death on the
plantation. The character of the absconding was various. Some slaves merely
took vacations without leave, some fled in postponement of threatened
punishments, and most of the rest made resolute efforts to escape from
bondage altogether.

Occasionally, however, a squad would strike in a body as a protest against
severities. An episode of this sort was recounted in a letter of a Georgia
overseer to his absent employer: "Sir: I write you a few lines in order to
let you know that six of your hands has left the plantation--every man but
Jack. They displeased me with their worke and I give some of them a few
lashes, Tom with the rest. On Wednesday morning they were missing. I think
they are lying out until they can see you or your uncle Jack, as he is
expected daily. They may be gone off, or they may be lying round in this
neighbourhood, but I don't know. I blame Tom for the whole. I don't think
the rest would of left the plantation if Tom had not of persuaded them of
for some design. I give Tom but a few licks, but if I ever get him in my
power I will have satisfaction. There was a part of them had no cause for
leaving, only they thought if they would all go it would injure me moore.
They are as independent a set for running of as I have ever seen, and I
think the cause is they have been treated too well. They want more whipping
and no protecter; but if our country is so that negroes can quit their
homes and run of when they please without being taken they will have the
advantage of us. If they should come in I will write to you immediately and
let you know." [35]

[Footnote 35: Letter of I.E.H. Harvey, Jefferson County, Georgia, April 16,
1837, to H.C. Flournoy, Athens, Ga. MS. in private possession. Punctuation
and capitals, which are conspicuously absent in the original, have here
been supplied for the sake of clarity.]

Such a case is analogous to that of wage-earning laborers on strike for
better conditions of work. The slaves could not negotiate directly at such
a time, but while they lay in the woods they might make overtures to the
overseer through slaves on a neighboring plantation as to terms upon which
they would return to work, or they might await their master's posthaste
arrival and appeal to him for a redress of grievances. Humble as their
demeanor might be, their power of renewing the pressure by repeating their
flight could not be ignored. A happy ending for all concerned might be
reached by mutual concessions and pledges. That the conclusion might be
tragic is illustrated in a Louisiana instance where the plantation was in
charge of a negro foreman. Eight slaves after lying out for some weeks
because of his cruelty and finding their hardships in the swamp intolerable
returned home together and proposed to go to work again if granted amnesty.
When the foreman promised a multitude of lashes instead, they killed him
with their clubs. The eight then proceeded to the parish jail at Vidalia,
told what they had done, and surrendered themselves. The coroner went to
the plantation and found the foreman dead according to specifications.[36]
The further history of the eight is unknown.

[Footnote 36: _Daily Delta_ (New Orleans), April 17, 1849.]

Most of the runaways went singly, but some of them went often. Such chronic
offenders were likely to be given exemplary punishment when recaptured. In
the earlier decades branding and shackling were fairly frequent. Some of
the punishments were unquestionably barbarous, the more so when inflicted
upon talented and sensitive mulattoes and quadroons who might be quite
as fit for freedom as their masters. In the later period the more common
resorts were to whipping, and particularly to sale. The menace of this last
was shrewdly used by making a bogey man of the trader and a reputed hell
on earth of any district whither he was supposed to carry his merchandise.
"They are taking her to Georgia for to wear her life away" was a slave
refrain welcome to the ears of masters outside that state; and the
slanderous imputation gave no offence even to Georgians, for they
recognized that the intention was benevolent, and they were in turn
blackening the reputations of the more westerly states in the amiable
purpose of keeping their own slaves content.

Virtually all the plantations whose records are available suffered more
or less from truancy, and the abundance of newspaper advertisements for
fugitives reinforces the impression that the need of deterrence was vital.
Whippings, instead of proving a cure, might bring revenge in the form of
sabotage, arson or murder. Adequacy in food, clothing and shelter might
prove of no avail, for contentment must be mental as well as physical. The
preventives mainly relied upon were holidays, gifts and festivities to
create lightness of heart; overtime and overtask payments to promote zeal
and satisfaction; kindliness and care to call forth loyalty in return;
and the special device of crop patches to give every hand a stake in the
plantation. This last raised a minor problem of its own, for if slaves
were allowed to raise and sell the plantation staples, pilfering might be
stimulated more than industry and punishments become more necessary
than before. In the cotton belt a solution was found at last in nankeen
cotton.[37] This variety had been widely grown for domestic use as early as
the beginning of the nineteenth century, but it was left largely in neglect
until when in the thirties it was hit upon for negro crops. While the
prices it brought were about the same as those of the standard upland
staple, its distinctive brown color prevented the admixture of the
planter's own white variety without certain detection when it reached
the gin. The scale which the slave crops attained on some plantations is
indicated by the proceeds of $1,969.65 in 1859 from the nankeen of the
negroes on the estate of Allen McWalker in Taylor County, Georgia.[38] Such
returns might be distributed in cash; but planters generally preferred for
the sake of sobriety that money should not be freely handled by the slaves.
Earnings as well as gifts were therefore likely to be issued in the form of
tickets for merchandise. David Ross, for example, addressed the following
to the firm of Allen and Ellis at Fredericksburg in the Christmas season of
1802: "Gentlemen: Please to let the bearer George have ten dollars value in
anything he chooses"; and the merchants entered a memorandum that George
chose two handkerchiefs, two hats, three and a half yards of linen, a pair
of hose, and six shillings in cash.[39]

[Footnote 37: John Drayton, _View of South Carolina_ (Charleston, 1802), p.
128.]

[Footnote 38: Macon, Ga., _Telegraph_, Feb. 3, 1859, quoted in _DeBow's
Review_, XXIX, 362, note.]

[Footnote 39: MS. among the Allen and Ellis papers in the Library of
Congress.]

In general the most obvious way of preventing trouble was to avoid the
occasion for it. If tasks were complained of as too heavy, the simplest
recourse was to reduce the schedule. If jobs were slackly done,
acquiescence was easier than correction. The easy-going and plausible
disposition of the blacks conspired with the heat of the climate to soften
the resolution of the whites and make them patient. Severe and unyielding
requirements would keep everyone on edge; concession when accompanied with
geniality and not indulged so far as to cause demoralization would make
plantation life not only tolerable but charming.

In the actual regime severity was clearly the exception, and kindliness the
rule. The Englishman Welby, for example, wrote in 1820: "After travelling
through three slave states I am obliged to go back to theory to raise any
abhorrence of it. Not once during the journey did I witness an instance of
cruel treatment nor could I discover anything to excite commiseration in
'the faces or gait of the people of colour. They walk, talk and appear at
least as independent as their masters; in animal spirits they have greatly
the advantage."[40] Basil Hall wrote in 1828: "I have no wish, God knows!
to defend slavery in the abstract; ... but ... nothing during my recent
journey gave me more satisfaction than the conclusion to which I was
gradually brought that the planters of the Southern states of America,
generally speaking, have a sincere desire to manage their estates with
the least possible severity. I do not say that undue severity is nowhere
exercised; but the discipline, taken upon the average, as far as I could
learn, is not more strict than is necessary for the maintenance of a proper
degree of authority, without which the whole framework of society in that
quarter would be blown to atoms."[41] And Olmsted wrote: "The only whipping
of slaves that I have seen in Virginia has been of these wild, lazy
children as they are being broke in to work."[42]

[Footnote 40: Adlard Welby, _Visit to North America_ (London, 1821 )
reprinted in Thwaites ed., _Early Western Travels_, XII, 289]

[Footnote 41: Basil Hall, _Travels in the United States_, III, 227, 228.]

[Footnote 42: Olmsted, _Seaboard Slave States_, p. 146.]

As to the rate and character of the work, Hall said that in contrast with
the hustle prevailing on the Northern farms, "in Carolina all mankind
appeared comparatively idle."[43] Olmsted, when citing a Virginian's remark
that his negroes never worked enough to tire themselves, said on his own
account: "This is just what I have thought when I have seen slaves at
work--they seem to go through the motions of labor without putting strength
into them. They keep their powers in reserve for their own use at night,
perhaps."[44] And Solon Robinson reported tersely from a rice plantation
that the negroes plied their hoes "at so slow a rate, the motion would have
given a quick-working Yankee convulsions."[45]

[Footnote 43: Basil Hall, III, 117.]

[Footnote 44: _Seaboard Slave States_, p. 91.]

[Footnote 45: _American Agriculturist_, IX, 93.]

There was clearly no general prevalence of severity and strain in the
regime. There was, furthermore, little of that curse of impersonality
and indifference which too commonly prevails in the factories of the
present-day world where power-driven machinery sets the pace, where the
employers have no relations with the employed outside of work hours, where
the proprietors indeed are scattered to the four winds, where the directors
confine their attention to finance, and where the one duty of the
superintendent is to procure a maximum output at a minimum cost. No, the
planters were commonly in residence, their slaves were their chief property
to be conserved, and the slaves themselves would not permit indifference
even if the masters were so disposed. The generality of the negroes
insisted upon possessing and being possessed in a cordial but respectful
intimacy. While by no means every plantation was an Arcadia there were many
on which the industrial and racial relations deserved almost as glowing
accounts as that which the Englishman William Faux wrote in 1819 of the
"goodly plantation" of the venerable Mr. Mickle in the uplands of South
Carolina.[46] "This gentleman," said he, "appears to me to be a rare
example of pure and undefiled religion, kind and gentle in manners....
Seeing a swarm, or rather herd, of young negroes creeping and dancing
about the door and yard of his mansion, all appearing healthy, happy and
frolicsome and withal fat and decently clothed, both young and old, I felt
induced to praise the economy under which they lived. 'Aye,' said he, 'I
have many black people, but I have never bought nor sold any in my life.
All that you see came to me with my estate by virtue of my father's will.
They are all, old and young, true and faithful to my interests. They need
no taskmaster, no overseer. They will do all and more than I expect them
to do, and I can trust them with untold gold. All the adults are well
instructed, and all are members of Christian churches in the neighbourhood;
and their conduct is becoming their professions. I respect them as my
children, and they look on me as their friend and father. Were they to be
taken from me it would be the most unhappy event of their lives,' This
conversation induced me to view more attentively the faces of the adult
slaves; and I was astonished at the free, easy, sober, intelligent and
thoughtful impression which such an economy as Mr. Mickle's had indelibly
made on their countenances."

[Footnote 46: William Faux, _Memorable Days in America_ (London, 1823), p.
68, reprinted in Thwaites, ed., _Early Western Travels_, XI, 87.]

CHAPTER XVI

PLANTATION LIFE

When Hakluyt wrote in 1584 his _Discourse of Western Planting_, his theme
was the project of American colonization; and when a settlement was planted
at Jamestown, at Boston or at Providence as the case might be, it was
called, regardless of the type, a plantation. This usage of the word in the
sense of a colony ended only upon the rise of a new institution to which
the original name was applied. The colonies at large came then to be known
as provinces or dominions, while the sub-colonies, the privately
owned village estates which prevailed in the South, were alone called
plantations. In the Creole colonies, however, these were known as
_habitations_--dwelling places. This etymology of the name suggests the
nature of the thing--an isolated place where people in somewhat peculiar
groups settled and worked and had their being. The standard community
comprised a white household in the midst of several or many negro families.
The one was master, the many were slaves; the one was head, the many were
members; the one was teacher, the many were pupils.

The scheme of the buildings reflected the character of the group. The "big
house," as the darkies loved to call it, might be of any type from a double
log cabin to a colonnaded mansion of many handsome rooms, and its setting
might range from a bit of primeval forest to an elaborate formal garden.
Most commonly the house was commodious in a rambling way, with no pretense
to distinction without nor to luxury within. The two fairly constant
features were the hall running the full depth of the house, and the
verandah spanning the front. The former by day and the latter at evening
served in all temperate seasons as the receiving place for guests and the
gathering place for the household at all its leisure times. The house was
likely to have a quiet dignity of its own; but most of such beauty as the
homestead possessed was contributed by the canopy of live-oaks if on the
rice or sugar coasts, or of oaks, hickories or cedars, if in the uplands.
Flanking the main house in many cases were an office and a lodge,
containing between them the administrative headquarters, the schoolroom,
and the apartments for any bachelor overflow whether tutor, sons or
guests. Behind the house and at a distance of a rod or two for the sake of
isolating its noise and odors, was the kitchen. Near this, unless a spring
were available, stood the well with its two buckets dangling from the
pulley; and near this in turn the dairy and the group of pots and tubs
which constituted the open air laundry. Bounding the back yard there were
the smoke-house where bacon and hams were cured, the sweet potato pit, the
ice pit except in the southernmost latitudes where no ice of local origin
was to be had, the carriage house, the poultry house, the pigeon cote, and
the lodgings of the domestic servants. On plantations of small or medium
scale the cabins of the field hands generally stood at the border of the
master's own premises; but on great estates, particularly in the lowlands,
they were likely to be somewhat removed, with the overseer's house, the
smithy, and the stables, corn cribs and wagon sheds nearby. At other
convenient spots were the buildings for working up the crops--the tobacco
house, the threshing and pounding mills, the gin and press, or the sugar
house as the respective staples required. The climate conduced so strongly
to out of door life that as a rule each roof covered but a single unit of
residence, industry or storage.

The fields as well as the buildings commonly radiated from the planter's
house. Close at hand were the garden, the orchards and the horse lot; and
behind them the sweet potato field, the watermelon patch and the forage
plots of millet, sorghum and the like. Thence there stretched the fields
of the main crops in a more or less solid expanse according to the local
conditions. Where ditches or embankments were necessary, as for sugar and
rice fields, the high cost of reclamation promoted compactness; elsewhere
the prevailing cheapness of land promoted dispersion. Throughout the
uplands, accordingly, the area in crops was likely to be broken by wood
lots and long-term fallows. The scale of tillage might range from a few
score acres to a thousand or two; the expanse of unused land need have no
limit but those of the proprietor's purse and his speculative proclivity.

The scale of the orchards was in some degree a measure of the domesticity
prevailing. On the rice coast the unfavorable character of the soil and the
absenteeism of the planter's families in summer conspired to keep the fruit
trees few. In the sugar district oranges and figs were fairly plentiful.
But as to both quantity and variety in fruits the Piedmont was unequaled.
Figs, plums, apples, pears and quinces were abundant, but the peaches
excelled all the rest. The many varieties of these were in two main groups,
those of clear stones and soft, luscious flesh for eating raw, and those
of clinging stones and firm flesh for drying, preserving, and making pies.
From June to September every creature, hogs included, commonly had as many
peaches as he cared to eat; and in addition great quantities might be
carried to the stills. The abandoned fields, furthermore, contributed
dewberries, blackberries, wild strawberries and wild plums in summer, and
persimmons in autumn, when the forest also yielded its muscadines, fox
grapes, hickory nuts, walnuts, chestnuts and chinquapins, and along the
Gulf coast pecans.

The resources for edible game were likewise abundant, with squirrels,
opossums and wild turkeys, and even deer and bears in the woods, rabbits,
doves and quail in the fields, woodcock and snipe in the swamps and
marshes, and ducks and geese on the streams. Still further, the creeks and
rivers yielded fish to be taken with hook, net or trap, as well as terrapin
and turtles, and the coastal waters added shrimp, crabs and oysters. In
most localities it required little time for a household, slave or free, to
lay forest, field or stream under tribute.

The planter's own dietary, while mostly home grown, was elaborate. Beef and
mutton were infrequent because the pastures were poor; Irish potatoes were
used only when new, for they did not keep well in the Southern climate;
and wheaten loaves were seldom seen because hot breads were universally
preferred. The standard meats were chicken in its many guises, ham and
bacon. Wheat flour furnished relays of biscuit and waffles, while corn
yielded lye hominy, grits, muffins, batter cakes, spoon bread, hoe cake
and pone. The gardens provided in season lettuce, cucumbers, radishes and
beets, mustard greens and turnip greens, string beans, snap beans and
butter beans, asparagus and artichokes, Irish potatoes, squashes, onions,
carrots, turnips, okra, cabbages and collards. The fields added green corn
for boiling, roasting, stewing and frying, cowpeas and black-eyed peas,
pumpkins and sweet potatoes, which last were roasted, fried or candied
for variation. The people of the rice coast, furthermore, had a special
fondness for their own pearly staple; and in the sugar district _strop de
batterie_ was deservedly popular. The pickles, preserves and jellies were
in variety and quantity limited only by the almost boundless resources and
industry of the housewife and her kitchen corps. Several meats and breads
and relishes would crowd the table simultaneously, and, unless unexpected
guests swelled the company, less would be eaten during the meal than would
be taken away at the end, never to return. If ever tables had a habit of
groaning it was those of the planters. Frugality, indeed, was reckoned a
vice to be shunned, and somewhat justly so since the vegetables and eggs
were perishable, the bread and meat of little cost, and the surplus from
the table found sure disposal in the kitchen or the quarters. Lucky was the
man whose wife was the "big house" cook, for the cook carried a basket, and
the basket was full when she was homeward bound.

The fare of the field hands was, of course, far more simple. Hoecake and
bacon were its basis and often its whole content. But in summer fruit
and vegetables were frequent; there was occasional game and fish at all
seasons; and the first heavy frost of winter brought the festival of
hog-killing time. While the shoulders, sides, hams and lard were saved, all
other parts of the porkers were distributed for prompt consumption. Spare
ribs and backbone, jowl and feet, souse and sausage, liver and chitterlings
greased every mouth on the plantation; and the crackling-bread, made of
corn meal mixed with the crisp tidbits left from the trying of the lard,
carried fullness to repletion. Christmas and the summer lay-by brought
recreation, but the hog-killing brought fat satisfaction.[1]

[Footnote 1: This account of plantation homesteads and dietary is drawn
mainly from the writer's own observations in post-bellum times in which,
despite the shifting of industrial arrangements and the decrease of wealth,
these phases have remained apparent. Confirmation may be had in Philip
Fithian _Journal_ (Princeton, 1900); A. de Puy Van Buren, _Jottings of a
Year's Sojourn in the South_ (Battle Creek, Mich., 1859); Susan D. Smedes,
_Memorials of a Southern Planter_ (Baltimore, 1887); Mary B. Chestnutt, _A
Diary from Dixie_ (New York, 1905); and many other memoirs and traveller's
accounts.]

The warmth of the climate produced some distinctive customs. One was the
high seasoning of food to stimulate the appetite; another was the afternoon
siesta of summer; a third the wellnigh constant leaving of doors ajar even
in winter when the roaring logs in the chimney merely took the chill from
the draughts. Indeed a door was not often closed on the plantation except
those of the negro cabins, whose inmates were hostile to night air, and
those of the storerooms. As a rule, it was only in the locks of the latter
that keys were ever turned by day or night.

The lives of the whites and the blacks were partly segregate, partly
intertwined. If any special link were needed, the children supplied it.
The whites ones, hardly knowing their mothers from their mammies or their
uncles by blood from their "uncles" by courtesy, had the freedom of the
kitchen and the cabins, and the black ones were their playmates in the
shaded sandy yard the livelong day. Together they were regaled with
folklore in the quarters, with Bible and fairy stories in the "big house,"
with pastry in the kitchen, with grapes at the scuppernong arbor, with
melons at the spring house and with peaches in the orchard. The half-grown
boys were likewise almost as undiscriminating among themselves as the dogs
with which they chased rabbits by day and 'possums by night. Indeed, when
the fork in the road of life was reached, the white youths found something
to envy in the freedom of their fellows' feet from the cramping weight of
shoes and the freedom of their minds from the restraints of school. With
the approach of maturity came routine and responsibility for the whites,
routine alone for the generality of the blacks. Some of the males of each
race grew into ruffians, others into gentlemen in the literal sense, some
of the females into viragoes, others into gentlewomen; but most of
both races and sexes merely became plain, wholesome folk of a somewhat
distinctive plantation type.

In amusements and in religion the activities of the whites and blacks were
both mingled and separate. Fox hunts when occurring by day were as a rule
diversions only for the planters and their sons and guests, but when they
occurred by moonlight the chase was joined by the negroes on foot with
halloos which rivalled the music of the hounds. By night also the blacks,
with the whites occasionally joining in, sought the canny 'possum and the
embattled 'coon; in spare times by day they hied their curs after the
fleeing Brer Rabbit, or built and baited seductive traps for turkeys and
quail; and fishing was available both by day and by night. At the horse
races of the whites the jockeys and many of the spectators were negroes;
while from the cock fights and even the "crap" games of the blacks, white
men and boys were not always absent.