Title: The Cotton Kingdom, volume 2 (of 2) : A traveller's observations on cotton and slavery in the American Slave States
Author: Olmsted, Frederick Law
Language: English
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     Transcriber’s Notes

     Inconsistent hyphenation, capitalization, and spelling in the
     original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical
     errors have been corrected.

     Quotes in dialect were not corrected.


     The following are possible errors, but retained:

     but I havn’t got through with you yet. (page 10)
     venemous water-snakes, (page 24)
     Barbecued rabits. (page 57)
     Rasins (page 57)
     prehaps you’ll never see a stage again; (page 66)

     Page 76 and 77 (Numerous possible spelling errors).

     Your equaility is acknowledged (page 143)
     As to the moralty of this question (page 234)
     lagunes, and jungles (page 257)
     a caldron which stood over the fire (page 316)
     the moral physican (page 344)


    JOURNEYS AND EXPLORATIONS

    IN

    THE COTTON KINGDOM OF AMERICA.



     THE
     COTTON KINGDOM:

     A TRAVELLER’S OBSERVATIONS ON COTTON AND SLAVERY
     IN THE AMERICAN SLAVE STATES.

     BASED UPON THREE FORMER VOLUMES OF JOURNEYS AND INVESTIGATIONS
     BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

     BY
     FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED.

     _IN TWO VOLUMES._
     VOL. II.

     NEW YORK:
     PUBLISHED BY MASON BROTHERS,
     5 and 7 MERCER STREET.
     LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, SON & CO., 47 LUDGATE HILL.

     1861.



     Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by
     MASON BROTHERS,

     In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States
     for the Southern District of New York.


     PRINTED BY
     C. A. ALVORD,
     15 Vandewater-st.



CONTENTS.


                                                                 PAGE
     CHAPTER I.

     SOUTH-WESTERN LOUISIANA AND EASTERN TEXAS                      1


     CHAPTER II.

     A TRIP INTO NORTHERN MISSISSIPPI                              55


     CHAPTER III.

     THE INTERIOR COTTON DISTRICTS—CENTRAL MISSISSIPPI, ALABAMA,
     ETC.                                                          84


     CHAPTER IV.

     THE EXCEPTIONAL LARGE PLANTERS                               143


     CHAPTER V.

     SLAVERY IN ITS PROPERTY ASPECT.—MORAL AND RELIGIOUS
     INSTRUCTION OF THE SLAVES, ETC.                              184


     CHAPTER VI.

     SLAVERY AS A POOR LAW SYSTEM                                 236


     CHAPTER VII.

     COTTON SUPPLY AND WHITE LABOUR IN THE COTTON CLIMATE         252


     CHAPTER VIII.

     THE CONDITION AND CHARACTER OF THE PRIVILEGED CLASSES
     OF THE SOUTH                                                 272


     CHAPTER IX.

     THE DANGER OF THE SOUTH                                      338


     APPENDIX (A.)

     THE CONDITION OF VIRGINIA.—STATISTICS                        364


     APPENDIX (B.)

     THE SLAVE TRADE IN VIRGINIA                                  372


     APPENDIX (C.)

     COST OF LABOUR IN THE BORDER STATES                          380


     APPENDIX (D.)

     STATISTICS OF THE GEORGIA SEABOARD                           385


     INDEX TO THE WORK                                            393



COTTON AND SLAVERY.



CHAPTER I.

SOUTH-WESTERN LOUISIANA AND EASTERN TEXAS.


_Nacogdoches._—In this town of 500 inhabitants, we found there was no
flour. At San Augustine we had inquired in vain at all the stores for
refined sugar. Not satisfied with some blankets that were shown us, we
were politely recommended by the shopkeeper to try other stores. At
each of the other stores we were told they had none: the only blankets
in town we should find at ——’s, naming the one we had just quitted. The
same thing occurred with several other articles.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Houston County._—This day’s ride and the next were through a very
poor country, clay or sand soil, bearing short oaks and black-jack.
We passed one small meadow, or prairie, covered with coarse grass.
Deserted plantations appeared again in greater numbers than the
occupied. One farm, near which we stopped, was worked by eight field
hands. The crop had been fifty bales; small, owing to a dry season. The
corn had been exceedingly poor. The hands, we noticed, came in from the
fields after eight o’clock.

The deserted houses, B. said, were built before the date of Texan
Independence. After Annexation the owners had moved on to better lands
in the West. One house he pointed out as having been the residence of
one of a band of pirates who occupied the country thirty or forty years
ago. They had all been gradually killed.

During the day we met two men on horseback, one upon wheels, and passed
one emigrant family. This was all the motion upon the principal road of
the district.

The second day’s camp was a few miles beyond the town of Crockett,
the shire-town of Houston County. Not being able to find corn for our
horses, we returned to the village for it.

We obtained what we wanted for a day’s rest, which we proposed for
Sunday, the following day, and loaded it into our emptied hampers. We
then looked about the town for current provisions for ourselves. We
were rejoiced to find a German baker, but damped by finding he had only
molasses-cakes and candies for sale. There was no flour in the town,
except the little of which he made his cakes. He was from Hamburgh,
and though he found a tolerable sale, to emigrants principally, he was
very tired of Crockett, and intended to move to San Antonio among his
countrymen. He offered us coffee, and said he had had beer, but on
Christmas-day a mass of people called on him; he had “treated” them
all, and they had finished his supply.

We inquired at seven stores, and at the two inns for butter, flour,
or wheat-bread, and fresh meat. There was none in town. One innkeeper
offered us salt beef, the only meat, except pork, in town. At the
stores we found crackers, worth in New York 6 cents a pound, sold here
at 20 cents; poor raisins, 30 cents; Manilla rope, half-inch, 30 cents
a pound. When butter was to be had it came in firkins from New York,
although an excellent grazing country is near the town.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Trinity Bottom._—On landing on the west side of the Trinity, we
entered a rich bottom, even in winter, of an almost tropical aspect.
The road had been cut through a cane-brake, itself a sort of Brobdignag
grass. Immense trees, of a great variety of kinds, interlaced their
branches and reeled with their own rank growth. Many vines, especially
huge grape-vines, ran hanging from tree to tree, adding to the
luxuriant confusion. Spanish moss clung thick everywhere, supplying the
shadows of a winter foliage.

These bottom lands bordering the Trinity are among the richest of rich
Texas. They are not considered equal, in degree of fatness, to some
parts of the Brazos, Colorado, and Guadaloupe bottoms, but are thought
to have compensation in reliability for steady cropping.

We made our camp on the edge of the bottom, and for safety against
our dirty persecutors, the hogs, pitched our tent _within_ a large
hog-yard, putting up the bars to exclude them. The trees within had
been sparingly cut, and we easily found tent-poles and fuel at hand.

The plantation on which we were thus intruding had just been sold, we
learned, at two dollars per acre. There were seven hundred acres, and
the buildings, with a new gin-house, worth nearly one thousand dollars,
were included in the price. With the land were sold eight prime
field-hands. A quarter of the land was probably subject to overflow,
and the limits extended over some unproductive upland.

When field-hands are sold in this way with the land, the family
servants, who have usually been selected from the field-hands, must be
detached to follow the fortunes of the seller. When, on the other hand,
the land is sold simply, the whole body of slaves move away, leaving
frequently wives and children on neighbouring plantations. Such a cause
of separation must be exceedingly common among the restless, almost
nomadic, small proprietors of the South.

But the very word “sale,” applied to a slave, implies this cruelty,
leaving, of course, the creature’s whole happiness to his owner’s
discretion and humanity.

As if to give the lie to our reflections, however, the rascals here
appeared to be particularly jolly, perhaps adopting Mark Tapley’s
good principles. They were astir half the night, talking, joking, and
singing loud and merrily.

This plantation had made this year seven bales to the hand. The water
for the house, we noticed, was brought upon heads a quarter of a mile,
from a rain-pool, in which an old negress was washing.

       *       *       *       *       *

_At an old Settler’s._—The room was fourteen feet square, with battens
of split boards tacked on between the broader openings of the logs.
Above, it was open to the rafters, and in many places the sky could
be seen between the shingles of the roof. A rough board box, three
feet square, with a shelf in it, contained the crockery-ware of the
establishment; another similar box held the store of meal, coffee,
sugar, and salt; a log crib at the horse-pen held the corn, from which
the meal was daily ground, and a log smoke or store-house contained
the store of pork. A canopy-bed filled one quarter of the room; a
cradle, four chairs seated with untanned deer-hide, a table, a skillet
or bake-kettle, a coffee-kettle, a frying-pan, and a rifle laid across
two wooden pegs on the chimney, with a string of patches, powder-horn,
pouch, and hunting-knife, completed the furniture of the house. We all
sat with hats and overcoats on, and the woman cooked in bonnet and
shawl. As I sat in the chimney-corner I could put both my hands out,
one laid on the other, between the stones of the fire-place and the
logs of the wall.

A pallet of quilts and blankets was spread for us in the lean-to,
just between the two doors. We slept in all our clothes, including
overcoats, hats, and boots, and covered entirely with blankets. At
seven in the morning, when we threw them off, the mercury in the
thermometer in our saddle-bags, which we had used for a pillow, stood
at 25° Fahrenheit.

We contrived to make cloaks and hoods from our blankets, and after
going through with the fry, coffee and pone again, and paying one
dollar each for the entertainment of ourselves and horses, we continued
our journey.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Caldwell._—Late in the same evening we reached a hamlet, the “seat of
justice” of Burleson County. We were obliged to leave our horses in
a stable, made up of a roof, in which was a loft for the storage of
provender, set upon posts, without side-boarding, so that the norther
met with no obstruction. It was filled with horses, and ours alone were
blanketed for the night. The mangers were very shallow and narrow, and
as the corn was fed on the cob, a considerable proportion of it was
thrown out by the horses in their efforts to detach the edible portion.
With laudable economy, our landlord had twenty-five or thirty pigs
running at large in the stable, to prevent this overflow from being
wasted.

The “hotel” was an unusually large and fine one; the principal room
had glass windows. Several panes of these were, however, broken, and
the outside door could not be closed from without; and when closed, was
generally pried open with a pocket-knife by those who wished to go out.
A great part of the time it was left open. Supper was served in another
room, in which there was no fire, and the outside door was left open
for the convenience of the servants in passing to and from the kitchen,
which, as usual here at large houses, was in a detached building.
Supper was, however, eaten with such rapidity that nothing had time to
freeze on the table.

There were six Texans, planters and herdsmen, who had made harbour at
the inn for the norther, two German shopkeepers and a young lawyer,
who were boarders, besides our party of three, who had to be seated
before the fire. We kept coats and hats on, and gained as much warmth,
from the friendly manner in which we drew together, as possible. After
ascertaining, by a not at all impertinent or inconsiderate method
of inquiry, where we were from, which way we were going, what we
thought of the country, what we thought of the weather, and what were
the capacities and the cost of our fire-arms, we were considered as
initiated members of the crowd, and “the conversation became general.”

The matter of most interest came up in this wise: “The man made a white
boy, fourteen or fifteen years old, get up and go out in the norther
for wood, when there was a great, strong nigger fellow lying on the
floor doing nothing. God! I had an appetite to give him a hundred,
right there.”

“Why, you wouldn’t go out into the norther yourself, would you, if you
were not obliged to?” inquired one, laughingly.

“I wouldn’t have a nigger in my house that I was afraid to set to work,
at anything I wanted him to do, at any time. They’d hired him out to go
to a new place next Thursday, and they were afraid if they didn’t treat
him well, he’d run away. If I couldn’t break a nigger of running away,
I wouldn’t have him any how.”

“I can tell you how you can break a nigger of running away, certain,”
said another. “There was an old fellow I used to know in Georgia, that
always cured his so. If a nigger ran away, when he caught him, he would
bind his knee over a log, and fasten him so he couldn’t stir; then he’d
take a pair of pincers and pull one of his toe-nails out by the roots;
and tell him that if he ever run away again, he would pull out two of
them, and if he run away again after that, he told them he’d pull out
four of them, and so on, doubling each time. He never had to do it more
than twice—it always cured them.”

One of the company then said that he was at the present time in
pursuit of a negro. He had bought him of a relative in Mississippi, and
had been told that he was a great runaway. He had, in fact, run away
from his relative three times, and always when they caught him he was
trying to _get back to Illinois_;[1] that was the reason he sold him.
“He offered him to me cheap,” he continued, “and I bought him because
he was a first-rate nigger, and I thought perhaps I could break him
of running away by bringing him down to this new country. I expect
he’s making for Mexico now. I am a-most sure I saw his tracks on the
road about twelve miles back, where he was a-coming on this way. Night
before last I engaged with a man who’s got some first-rate nigger dogs
to meet me here to-night; but I suppose the cold keeps him back.” He
then asked us to look out for him as we went on west, and gave us a
minute description of him that we might recognize him. He was “a real
black nigger,” and carried off a double-barrelled gun with him. Another
man, who was going on by another road westward, offered to look for him
that way, and to advertise him. Would he be likely to defend himself
with the gun if he should try to secure him? he asked. The owner said
he had no doubt he would. He was as humble a nigger when he was at work
as ever he had seen; but he was a mighty resolute nigger—there was no
man had more resolution. “Couldn’t I induce him to let me take the gun
by pretending I wanted to look at it, or something? I’d talk to him
simple; make as if I was a stranger, and ask him about the road, and
so on, and finally ask him what he had got for a gun, and to let me
look at it.” The owner didn’t believe he’d let go of the gun; he was a
“nigger of sense—as much sense as a white man; he was not one of your
kinkey-headed niggers.” The chances of catching him were discussed.
Some thought they were good, and some that the owner might almost as
well give it up, he’d got such a start. It was three hundred miles to
the Mexican frontier, and he’d have to make fires to cook the game he
would kill, and could travel only at night; but then every nigger or
Mexican he could find would help him, and if he had so much sense, he’d
manage to find out his way pretty straight, and yet not have white
folks see him.

We slept in a large upper room, in a company of five, with a broken
window at the head of our bed, and another at our side, offering a
short cut to the norther across our heads.

We were greatly amused to see one of our bed-room companions gravely
_spit_ in the candle before jumping into bed, explaining to some one
who made a remark, that he always did so, it gave him time to see what
he was about before it went out.

The next morning the ground was covered with sleet, and the gale still
continued (a pretty steady close-reefing breeze) during the day.

We wished to have a horse shod. The blacksmith, who was a white man,
we found in his shop, cleaning a fowling-piece. It was too d——d cold
to work, he said, and he was going to shoot some geese; he, at length,
at our urgent request, consented to earn a dollar; but, after getting
on his apron, he found that we had lost a shoe, and took it off again,
refusing to make a shoe while this d——d norther lasted, for any man. As
he had no shoes ready made, he absolutely turned us out of the shop,
and obliged us to go seventy-five miles further, a great part of the
way over a pebbly road, by which the beast lost three shoes before he
could be shod.

This respect for the north wind is by no means singular here. The
publication of the week’s newspaper in Bastrop was interrupted by
the norther, the editor mentioning, as a sufficient reason for the
irregularity, the fact that his printing-office was in the north part
of the house.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Austin._—Before leaving Eastern Texas behind us, I must add a random
note or two, the dates of which it would have been uncivil to indicate.

We stopped one night at the house of a planter, now twenty years
settled in Eastern Texas. He was a man of some education and natural
intelligence, and had, he told us, an income, from the labour of his
slaves, of some $4,000. His residence was one of the largest houses we
had seen in Texas. It had a second story, two wings and a long gallery.
Its windows had been once glazed, but now, out of eighty panes that
originally filled the lower windows, thirty only remained unbroken.
Not a door in the house had been ever furnished with a latch or even
a string; when they were closed, it was necessary to _claw_ or to ask
some one inside to push open. (Yet we happened to hear a neighbour
expressing serious admiration of the way these doors fitted.) The
furniture was of the rudest description.

One of the family had just had a hæmorrhage of the lungs; while we
were at supper, this person sat between the big fireplace and an open
outside door, having a window, too, at his side, in which only three
panes remained. A norther was blowing, and ice forming upon the gallery
outside. Next day at breakfast, the invalid was unable to appear on
account of a “bad turn.”

On our supper-table was nothing else than the eternal fry, pone and
coffee. Butter, of dreadful odour, was here added by exception. Wheat
flour they never used. It was “too much trouble.”

We were waited upon by two negro girls, dressed in short-waisted,
twilled-cotton gowns, once white, now looking as if they had been
worn by chimney-sweeps. The water for the family was brought in tubs
upon the heads of these two girls, from a creek, a quarter of a mile
distant, this occupation filling nearly all their time.

This gentleman had thirty or forty negroes, and two legitimate sons.
One was an idle young man. The other was, at eight years old, a
swearing, tobacco-chewing bully and ruffian. We heard him whipping a
puppy behind the house, and swearing between the blows, his father and
mother being at hand. His language and tone was an evident imitation of
his father’s mode of dealing with his slaves.

“I’ve got an account to settle with you; I’ve let you go about long
enough; I’ll teach you who’s your master; there, go now, God damn you,
but I havn’t got through with you yet.”

“You stop that cursing,” said his father, at length, “it isn’t right
for little boys to curse.”

“What do _you_ do when you get mad?” replied the boy; “reckon you cuss
some; so now you’d better shut up.”

       *       *       *       *       *

In the whole journey through Eastern Texas, we did not see one of the
inhabitants look into a newspaper or a book, although we spent days in
houses where men were lounging about the fire without occupation. One
evening I took up a paper which had been lying unopened upon the table
of the inn where we were staying, and smiled to see how painfully news
items dribbled into the Texas country papers, the loss of the tug-boat
“Ajax,” which occurred before we left New York, being here just given
as the loss of the “splendid steamer Ocax.”

A man who sat near said—

“Reckon you’ve read a good deal, hain’t you?”

“Oh, yes; why?”

“Reckon’d you had.”

“Why?”

“You look as though you liked to read. Well, it’s a good thing. S’pose
you take a pleasure in reading, don’t you?”

“That depends, of course, on what I have to read. I suppose everybody
likes to read when they find anything interesting to them, don’t they?”

“No; it’s damn tiresome to some folks, I reckon, any how, ’less you’ve
got the habit of it. Well, it’s a good thing; you can pass away your
time so.”

       *       *       *       *       *

The sort of interest taken in foreign affairs is well enough
illustrated by the views of a gentleman of property in Eastern Texas,
who was sitting with us one night, “spitting in the fire,” and talking
about cotton. Bad luck he had had—only four bales to the hand; couldn’t
account for it—bad luck; and next year he didn’t reckon nothing else
but that there would be a general war in Europe, and then he’d be in a
pretty fix, with cotton down to four cents a pound. Curse those Turks!
If he thought there would be a general war, he would take every d——d
nigger he’d got, right down to New Orleans, and sell them for what
they’d bring. They’d never be so high again as they were now, and if
there should come a general war they wouldn’t be worth half as much
next year. There always were infernal rascals somewhere in the world
trying to prevent an honest man from getting a living. Oh, if they got
to fighting, he hoped they’d eat each other up. They just ought to
be, all of them—Turks, and Russians, and Prussians, and Dutchmen, and
Frenchmen—just be put in a bag together, and slung into hell. That’s
what he’d do with them.

       *       *       *       *       *

Remarking, one day, at the house of a woman who was brought up at the
North, that there was much more comfort at her house than any we had
previously stopped at, she told us that the only reason the people
didn’t have any comfort here was, that they wouldn’t _take any trouble_
to get anything. Anything that their negroes could make they would
eat; but they would take no pains to instruct them, or to get anything
that didn’t grow on the plantation. A neighbour of hers owned fifty
cows, she supposed, but very rarely had any milk and scarcely ever any
butter, simply because his people were too lazy to milk or churn, and
he wouldn’t take the trouble to make them.

This woman entirely sustained the assertion that Northern people,
when they come to the South, have less feeling for the negroes than
Southerners themselves usually have. We asked her (she lived in a
village) whether she hired or owned her servants. They owned them all,
she said. When they first came to Texas they hired servants, but it
was very troublesome; they would take no interest in anything; and
she couldn’t get along with them. Then very often their owners, on
some pretext (ill-treatment, perhaps), would take them away. Then they
bought negroes. It was very expensive: a good negro girl cost seven
or eight hundred dollars, and that, we must know, was a great deal of
money to be laid out in a thing that might lie right down the next day
and die. They were not much better either than the hired servants.

Folks up North talked about how badly the negroes were treated; she
wished they could see how much work her girls did. She had four of
them, and she knew they didn’t do half so much work as one good Dutch
girl such as she used to have at the North. Oh! the negroes were the
laziest things in creation; there was no knowing how much trouble they
gave to look after them. Up to the North, if a girl went out into the
garden for anything, when she came back she would clean her feet, but
these nigger girls will stump right in and track mud all over the
house. What do they care? They’d just as lief clean the mud after
themselves as anything else—their time isn’t any value to themselves.
What do they care for the trouble it gives you? Not a bit. And you may
scold ’em and whip ’em—you never can break ’em into better habits.

I asked what were servants’ wages when they were hired out to do
housework? They were paid seven or eight dollars a month; sometimes
ten. She didn’t use to pay her girl at the North but four dollars, and
she knew she would do more work than any six of the niggers, and not
give half so much trouble as one. But you couldn’t get any other help
here but niggers. Northern folks talk about abolishing slavery, but
there wouldn’t be any use in that; that would be ridiculous, unless you
could some way get rid of the niggers. Why, they’d murder us all in
our beds—that’s what they’d do. Why, over to Fannin, there was a negro
woman that killed her mistress with an axe, and her two little ones.
The people just flocked together, and hung her right up on the spot;
they ought to have piled some wood round her, and burned her to death;
that would have been a good lesson to the rest. We afterwards heard her
scolding one of her girls, the girl made some exculpatory reply, and
getting the best of the argument, the mistress angrily told her if she
said another word she would have two hundred lashes given her. She came
in and remarked that if she hadn’t felt so nervous she would have given
that girl a good whipping herself; these niggers are so saucy, it’s
very trying to one who has to take care of them.

Servants are, it is true, “a trial,” in all lands, ages, and nations.
But note the fatal reason this woman frankly gives for the inevitable
delinquencies of slave-servants, “Their time isn’t any value to
themselves!”

The women of Eastern Texas seemed to us, in general, far superior to
their lords. They have, at least, the tender hearts and some of the
gentle delicacy that your “true Texan” lacks, whether mistresses of
slaves, or only of their own frying-pan. They are overworked, however,
as soon as married, and care gives them thin faces, sallow complexions,
and expressions either sad or sour.

Another night we spent at the house of a man who came here, when a
boy, from the North. His father was a mechanic, and had emigrated to
Texas just before the war of Independence. He joined the army, and
his son had been brought up—rather had grown up—Southern fashion,
with no training to regular industry. He had learned no trade. What
need? His father received some thousand acres of land in payment of
his services. The son earned some money by driving a team; bought some
cattle, took a wife, and a house, and now had been settled six years,
with a young family. He had nothing to do but look after his cattle,
go to the nearest town and buy meal and coffee occasionally, and sell
a few oxen when the bill was sent in. His house was more comfortless
than nine-tenths of the stables of the North. There were several
windows, some of which were boarded over, some had wooden shutters,
and some were entirely open. There was not a pane of glass. The doors
were closed with difficulty. We could see the stars, as we lay in bed,
through the openings of the roof; and on all sides, in the walls of
the room, one’s arm might be thrust out. Notwithstanding, that night
the mercury fell below 25° of our Fahrenheit thermometer. There was
the standard food and beverage, placed before us night and morning. We
asked if there was much game near him? There were a great many deer.
He saw them every day. Did he shoot many? He never shot any; ’twas too
much trouble. When he wanted “fresh,” ’twas easier to go out and stick
a hog (the very words he used). He had just corn enough to give our
horses one feed—there was none left for the morning. His own horses
could get along through the winter on the prairie. He made pets of his
children, but was cross and unjust to his wife, who might have been
pretty, and was affectionate. He was without care—thoughtless, content,
with an unoccupied mind. He took no newspaper—he read nothing. There
was, indeed, a pile of old books which his father had brought from the
North, but they seemed to be all of the Tract Society sort, and the
dust had been undisturbed upon them, it might have been, for many years.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Manchac Spring._—We found a plantation that would have done no
discredit to Virginia. The house was large and well constructed,
standing in a thick grove, separated from the prairie by a strong
worm-fence. Adjacent, within, was the spring, which deserved its
prominence of mention upon the maps. It had been tastefully grottoed
with heavy limestone rocks, now water-stained and mossy, and the pure
stream came gurgling up, in impetuous gallons, to pour itself in a
bright current out upon the prairie. The fountains of Italy were what
came to mind, and “Fontana de Manciocco” would have secured a more
natural name.

Everything about the house was orderly and neat. The proprietor came
out to receive us, and issued orders about the horses, which we felt,
from their quiet tone, would be obeyed without our supervision. When
we were ushered into a snug supper-room and found a clean table set
with wheat-bread, ham, tea, and preserved fruits, waited on by tidy and
ready girls, we could scarce think we had not got beyond the bounds
of Texas. We were, in fact, quit, for some time to come, of the lazy
poverty of Eastern Texas.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Lower Guadaloupe._—Not finding a suitable camping place, we stumbled,
after dark, into a large plantation upon the river bottom.

The irruption of our train within the plantation fences caused a
furious commotion among the dogs and little negroes, and it was with no
little difficulty we could explain to the planter, who appeared with
a candle, which was instantly blown out upon the porch, our peaceable
intentions. Finally, after a general striking out of Fanny’s heels and
the master’s boots, aided by the throwing of our loose lariats into
the confused crowd, the growling and chattering circle about us was
sufficiently enlarged and subdued for us to obtain a hearing, and we
were hospitably received.

“Ho, Sam! You Tom, here! Call your missus. Suke! if you don’t stop
that infernal noise I’ll have you drowned! Here, Bill! Josh! some of
you! why don’t you help the gentleman? Bring a lantern here! Packed,
are you, sir. Hold on, you there; leave the gun alone. Now, clear out
with you, you little devils, every one of you! Is there no one in the
house? St! after ’em, Tiger! Can’t any of you find a lantern? Where’s
Bill, to take these horses? What are you doing there? I tell you to be
off, now, every one of you! Tom! take a rail and keep ’em off there!”

In the midst of the noise we go through the familiar motions, and land
our saddles and hampers upon the gallery, then follow what appears to
be the headmost negro to the stable, and give him a hint to look well
out for the horses.

This is our first reintroduction to negro servants after our German
experiences, and the contrast is most striking and disagreeable. Here
were thirty or forty slaves, but not an order could be executed without
more reiteration, and threats, and oaths, and greater trouble to the
master and mistress, than would be needed to get a squadron under way.
We heard the master threaten his negroes with flogging, at least six
times, before we went to bed. In the night a heavy rain came up, and
he rose, on hearing it, to arrange the cistern spout, cursing again
his infernal niggers, who had turned it off for some convenience of
their own. In the morning, we heard the mistress scolding her girls for
having left articles outside which had been spoiled by the wet, after
repeated orders to bring them in. On visiting the stables we found the
door fastened by a board leaned against it.

All the animals were loose, except the mule, which I had fastened
myself. The rope attached to my saddle was stolen, and a shorter one
substituted for it, when I mentioned the fact, by which I was deceived,
until we were too far off to return. The master, seeing the horses
had yet had no fodder, called to a boy to get some for them, then,
countermanding his order, told the boy to call some one else, and go
himself to drive the cows out of the garden. Then, to another boy, he
said, “Go and pull two or three bundles of fodder out of the stack and
give these horses.” The boy soon came with two small bundles. “You
infernal rascal, couldn’t you tote more fodder than that? Go back and
bring four or five bundles, and be quick about it, or I’ll lick you.”
The boy walked slowly back, and returned with four bundles more.

But on entering at night we were struck with the air of comfort that
met us. We were seated in rocking-chairs in a well-furnished room,
before a blazing fire, offered water to wash, in a little lean-to
bed-room, and, though we had two hours to wait for our supper, it was
most excellent, and we passed an agreeable evening in intelligent
conversation with our host.

After his curiosity about us was satisfied, we learned from him that,
though a young man, he was an old settler, and had made a comfortable
fortune by his plantation. His wife gave us a picturesque account
of their waggon journey here with their people, and described the
hardships, dangers, and privations they had at first to endure. Now
they were far more comfortable than they could have ever hoped to have
been in the State from which they came. They thought their farm the
best cotton land in the world. It extended across a mile of timbered
bottom land from the river, then over a mile of bottom prairie, and
included a large tract of the big prairie “for range.” Their field
would produce, in a favourable season, three bales to the acre;
ordinarily a bale and a half: the “bale” 400 lbs. They had always far
more than their hands could pick. It was much more free from weeds
than the States, so much so, that three hands would be needed there to
cultivate the same area as two here; that is, with the same hands the
crop would be one-third greater.

But so anxious is every one in Texas to give all strangers a
favourable impression, that all statements as to the extreme profit
and healthfulness of lands must be taken with a grain of allowance. We
found it very difficult, without impertinent persistence, to obtain
any unfavourable facts. Persons not interested informed us, that from
one-third to one-half the cotton crop on some of these rich plantations
had been cut off by the worm, on several occasions, and that negroes
suffered much with dysentery and pneumonia.

It cost them very little to haul their cotton to the coast or to get
supplies. They had not been more sickly than they would have been on
the Mississippi. They considered that their steady sea-breeze was
almost a sure preventive of such diseases as they had higher up the
country.

They always employed German mechanics, and spoke well of them. Mexicans
were regarded in a somewhat unchristian tone, not as heretics or
heathen, to be converted with flannel and tracts, but rather as vermin,
to be exterminated. The lady was particularly strong in her prejudices.
White folks and Mexicans were never made to live together, anyhow, and
the Mexicans had no business here. They were getting so impertinent,
and were so well protected by the laws, that the Americans would just
have to get together and drive them all out of the country.

       *       *       *       *       *

_On the Chockolate._—“Which way did you come?” asked some one of the
old man.

“From ——.”

“See anything of a runaway nigger over there, anywhar?”

“No, sir. What kind of a nigger was it?”

“A small, black, screwed-up-faced nigger.”

“How long has he been out?”

“Nigh two weeks.”

“Whose is he?”

“Judge ——’s, up here. And he cut the judge right bad. Like to have
killed the judge. Cut his young master, too.”

“Reckon, if they caught him, ’twould go rather hard with him.”

“Reckon ’twould. We caught him once, but he got away from us again. We
was just tying his feet together, and he give me a kick in the face,
and broke. I had my six-shooter handy, and I tried to shoot him, but
every barrel missed fire. Been loaded a week. We shot at him three
times with rifles, but he’d got too far off, and we didn’t hit, but
we must have shaved him close. We chased him, and my dog got close to
him once. If he’d grip’d him, we should have got him; but he had a dog
himself, and just as my dog got within about a yard of him, his dog
turned and fit my dog, and he hurt him so bad we couldn’t get him to
run him again. We run him close, though, I tell you. Run him out of his
coat, and his boots, and a pistol he’d got. But ’twas getting towards
dark, and he got into them bayous, and kept swimming from one side to
another.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Ten days.”

“If he’s got across the river, he’d get to the Mexicans in two days,
and there he’d be safe. The Mexicans’d take care of him.”

“What made him run?”

“The judge gave him a week at Christmas, and when the week was up, I
s’pose he didn’t want to go to work again. He got unruly, and they was
a goin’ to whip him.”

“Now, how much happier that fellow’d ’a’ been, if he’d just stayed
and done his duty. He might have just worked and done his duty, and
his master’d ’a’ taken care of him, and given him another week when
Christmas come again, and he’d ’a’ had nothing to do but enjoy himself
again. These niggers, none of ’em, knows how much happier off they are
than if they was free. Now, very likely, he’ll starve to death, or get
shot.”

“Oh, the judge treats his niggers too kind. If he was stricter with
them, they’d have more respect for him, and be more contented, too.”

“Never do to be too slack with niggers.”

       *       *       *       *       *

We were riding in company, to-day, with a California drover, named
Rankin. He was in search of cattle to drive across the plains. He had
taken a drove before from Illinois, and told us that people in that
State, of equal circumstances, lived ten times better than here, in all
matters of comfort and refinement. He had suffered more in travelling
in Texas, than ever on the plains or the mountains. Not long before,
in driving some mules with his partner, they came to a house which was
the last on the road for fourteen miles. They had nothing in the world
in the house but a few ears of corn, they were going to grind in their
steel mill for their own breakfast, and wouldn’t sell on any terms.
“We hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, but we actually could get
nothing. The only other thing in the cabin, that could be eaten, was
a pile of deer-skins, with the hair on. We had to stake our mules,
and make a fire, and coil around it. About twelve o’clock there came
a norther. We heard it coming, and it made us howl. We didn’t sleep a
wink for cold.”

       *       *       *       *       *

_Houston._—We were sitting on the gallery of the hotel. A tall, jet
black negro came up, leading by a rope a downcast mulatto, whose
hands were lashed by a cord to his waist, and whose face was horribly
cut, and dripping with blood. The wounded man crouched and leaned for
support against one of the columns of the gallery—faint and sick.

“What’s the matter with that boy?” asked a smoking lounger.

“I run a fork into his face,” answered the negro.

“What are his hands tied for?”

“He’s a runaway, sir.”

“Did you catch him?”

“Yes, sir. He was hiding in the hay-loft, and when I went up to throw
some hay to the horses, I pushed the fork down into the mow and it
struck something hard. I didn’t know what it was, and I pushed hard,
and gave it a turn, and then he hollered, and I took it out.”

“What do you bring him here, for?”

“Come for the key of the jail, sir, to lock him up.”

“What!” said another, “one darkey catch another darkey? Don’t believe
that story.”

“Oh yes, mass’r, I tell for true. He was down in our hay-loft, and so
you see when I stab him, I _have_ to catch him.”

“Why, he’s hurt bad, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he says I pushed through the bones.”

“Whose nigger is he?”

“He says he belong to Mass’r Frost, sir, on the Brazos.”

The key was soon brought, and the negro led the mulatto away to jail.
He walked away limping, crouching, and writhing, as if he had received
other injuries than those on his face. The bystanders remarked that the
negro had not probably told the whole story.

We afterwards happened to see a gentleman on horseback, and smoking,
leading by a long rope through the deep mud, out into the country, the
poor mulatto, still limping and crouching, his hands manacled, and his
arms pinioned.

There is a prominent slave-mart in town, which holds a large lot
of likely-looking negroes, waiting purchasers. In the windows of
shops, and on the doors and columns of the hotel, are many written
advertisements, headed “A likely negro girl for sale.” “Two negroes for
sale.” “Twenty negro boys for sale,” etc.

       *       *       *       *       *

_South-eastern Texas._—We were unable to procure at Houston any
definite information with regard to our proposed route. The known roads
thence are those that branch northward and westward from their levee,
and so thoroughly within lines of business does local knowledge lie,
that the eastern shore is completely terra incognita. The roads east
were said to be bad after heavy rains, but the season had been dry, and
we determined to follow the direct and the distinct road, laid down
upon our map.

Now that I am in a position to give preliminary information, however,
there is no reason why the reader should enter this region as ignorant
as we did.

Our route took us by Harrisburg and San Jacinto to Liberty, upon the
Trinity; thence by Beaumont to the Sabine at Turner’s ferry; thence by
the Big Woods and Lake Charles to Opelousas, the old capital of St.
Landry Parish, at the western head of the intricate navigation from New
Orleans.

This large district, extending from the Trinity River to the bayous
of the Mississippi, has, throughout, the same general characteristics,
the principal of which are, lowness, flatness, and wetness. The soil
is variable, but is in greater part a loose, sandy loam, covered with
coarse grasses, forming level prairies, which are everywhere broken
by belts of pine forests, usually bordering creeks and bayous, but
often standing in islands. The surface is but very slightly elevated
above the sea; I suppose, upon an average, less than ten feet. It
is, consequently, imperfectly drained, and in a wet season a large
proportion is literally covered with water, as in crossing it, even in
a dry time, we were obliged to wade through many miles of marshy pools.
The river-bottoms, still lower than the general level, are subject to
constant overflow by tide-water, and what with the fallen timber, the
dense undergrowth, the mire-quags, the abrupt gullies, the patches
of rotten or floating corduroy, and three or four feet of dirty salt
water, the roads through them are not such as one would choose for a
morning ride. The country is sparsely settled, containing less than one
inhabitant to the square mile, one in four being a slave.

The many pools, through which the usual track took us, were swarming
with venemous water-snakes, four or five black moccasins often lifting
at once their devilish heads above the dirty surface, and wriggling
about our horses’ heels. Beyond the Sabine, alligator holes are an
additional excitement, the unsuspicious traveller suddenly sinking
through the treacherous surface, and sometimes falling a victim, horse
and all, to the hideous jaws of the reptile, while overwhelmed by the
engulfing mire in which he lurks.

Upon the whole, this is not the spot in which I should prefer to come
to light, burn, and expire; in fact, if the nether regions, as was
suggested by the dream-gentleman of Nachitoches, be “a boggy country,”
the avernal entrance might, I should think, with good probabilities, be
looked for in this region.

We passed, on both sides the Sabine, many abandoned farms, and the
country is but thinly settled. We found it impossible to obtain any
information about roads, and frequently went astray upon cattle paths,
once losing twenty miles in a day’s journey. The people were chiefly
herdsmen, cultivating a little cotton upon river-banks, but ordinarily
only corn, with a patch of cane to furnish household sugar. We tried
in vain to purchase corn for our horses, and were told that “folks
didn’t make corn enough to bread them, and if anybody had corn to give
his horse, he carried it in his hat and went out behind somewhere.”
The herds were in poor condition, and must in winter be reduced to
the verge of starvation. We saw a few hogs, converted, by hardship,
to figures so unnatural, that we at first took them for goats. Most
of the people we met were old emigrants, from Southern Louisiana and
Mississippi, and more disposed to gaiety and cheer than the Texan
planters. The houses showed a tendency to Louisiana forms, and the
table to a French style of serving the jerked beef, which is the
general dish of the country. The meat is dried in strips, over smoky
fires, and, if untainted and well prepared, is a tolerably savoury
food. I hardly know whether to chronicle it as a border barbarism, or a
Creolism, that we were several times, in this neighbourhood, shown to a
bed standing next to that occupied by the host and his wife, sometimes
with the screen of a shawl, sometimes without.

We met with one specimen of the Virginia habit of “dipping,” or
snuff-chewing, in the person of a woman who was otherwise neat and
agreeable, and observed that a young lady, well-dressed, and apparently
engaged, while we were present, in reading, went afterward to light her
pipe at the kitchen fire, and had a smoke behind the house.

The condition of the young men appeared to incline decidedly to
barbarism. We stopped a night at a house in which a drover, bringing
mules from Mexico, was staying; and, with the neighbours who had come
to look at the drove, we were thirteen men at table. When speaking
with us, all were polite and respectful, the women especially so; but
among one another, their coarseness was incredible. The master of the
house, a well-known gentleman of the county, who had been absent when
we arrived, and at supper-time, came afterwards upon the gallery and
commenced cursing furiously, because some one had taken his pipe.
Seeing us, he stopped abruptly, and after lighting the pipe, said, in a
rather peremptory and formal, but not uncourteous tone: “Where are you
from, gentlemen?”

“From Beaumont, sir, last.”

“Been out West?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Travelling?”

“Yes, sir.”

After pausing a moment to make up his mind—

“Where do you live when you are at home, gentlemen, and what’s your
business in this country?”

“We live in New York, and are travelling to see the country.”

“How do you like it?”

“Just here we find it flat and wet.”

“What’s your name?”

“Olmsted.”

“And what’s this gentleman’s name?”

“Olmsted.”

“Is it a Spanish name?”

“No, sir.”

He then abruptly left us, and the young men entertained one another
with stories of fights and horse-trades, and with vulgar obscenities.

Shortly he returned, saying—

“Show you to bed now, gentlemen, if you wish.”

“We are ready, sir, if you will be good enough to get a light.”

“A light?”

“Yes, sir.”

“_A light?_”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get a light?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well” (after a moment’s hesitation), “I’ll get one.”

On reaching the bed-room, which was in a building adjoining, he stood
awaiting our pleasure. Thanking him, I turned to take the light,
but his fingers were the candlestick. He continued to hold it, and
six young men, who had followed us, stood grouped around while we
undressed, placing our clothes upon the floor. Judy advanced to lie
down by them. One of the young men started forward, and said—

“I’ve got a right good knife.”

“What?”

“I’ve got a right good knife, if you want it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing, only I’ve got a right good knife, and if you’d like to kill
that dog, I’ll lend it to you.”

“Please to tell me what you mean?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“Keep your dog quiet, or I’ll kill her,” I suppose was the
interpretation. When we had covered ourselves in bed, the host said—

“I suppose you don’t want the light no more?”

“No, sir;” and all bade us good night; but leaving the door open,
commenced feats of prolonged dancing, or stamping upon the gallery,
which were uproariously applauded. Then came more obscenities and
profanities, apropos to fandango frolics described by the drovers. As
we had barely got to sleep, several came to occupy other beds in our
room. They had been drinking freely, and continued smoking in bed.

Upon the floor lay two boys of fourteen, who continued shouting and
laughing after the others had at length become quiet. Some one soon
said to one of them—

“You had better stop your noise; Frank says he’ll be damn’d if he don’t
come in and give you a hiding.”

Frank was trying to sleep upon the gallery.

“By ——,” the boy cried, raising himself, and drawing a coat from
under the pillow, “if he comes in here, I’ll be damn’d if I don’t kill
him. He dare not come in here. I would like to see him come in here,”
drawing from his coat pocket a revolver, and cocking it. “By ——, you
may come in here now. Come in here, come in here! Do you here that?”
(revolving the pistol rapidly). “—— damn me, if I don’t kill you, if
you come near the door.”

This continued without remonstrance for some time, when he lay down,
asking his companion for a light for his pipe, and continuing the noisy
conversation until we fell asleep. The previous talk had been much of
knife and pistol fights which had taken place in the county. The same
boy was obliging and amiable the next morning, assisting us to bring in
and saddle the horses at our departure.

One of the men here was a Yankee, who had lived so long in the Slave
States that he had added to his original ruralisms a very complete
collection of Southernisms, some of which were of the richest we met
with. He had been in the Texas Rangers, and, speaking of the West,
said he had been up round the head of the Guadaloupe “heaps and cords
of times,” at the same time giving us a very picturesque account of
the county. Speaking of wolves, he informed us that on the San Jacinto
there were “_any dimensions_ of them.” Obstinacy, in his vocabulary,
was represented by “damnation _cussedness_.” He was unable to conceive
of us in any other light than as two peddlers who had mistaken their
ground in coming here.

At another house where we stopped (in which, by the way, we ate our
supper by the light of pine knots blazing in the chimney, with an
apology for the absence of candles), we heard some conversation upon a
negro of the neighbourhood, who had been sold to a free negro, and who
refused to live with him, saying he wouldn’t be a servant to a nigger.
All agreed that he was right, although the man was well known to be
kind to his negroes, and would always sell any of them who wished it.
The slave had been sold because he wouldn’t mind. “If I had a negro
that wouldn’t mind,” said the woman of the house, “I’d break his head,
or I’d sell him; I wouldn’t have one about me.” Her own servant was
standing behind her. “I do think it would be better if there wasn’t any
niggers in the world, they do behave so bad, some of ’em. They steal
just like hogs.”

       *       *       *       *       *

_South-western Louisiana._—Soon after crossing the Sabine, we entered
a “hummock,” or tract of more fertile, oak-bearing land, known as the
Big Woods. The soil is not rich, but produces cotton, in good seasons
nearly a bale to the acre, and the limited area is fully occupied.
Upon one plantation we found an intelligent emigrant from Mississippi,
who had just bought the place, having stopped on his way into Texas,
because the time drew near for the confinement of his wife. Many farms
are bought by emigrants, he said, from such temporary considerations:
a child is sick, or a horse exhausted; they stop for a few weeks; but
summer comes, and they conclude to put in a crop, and often never move
again.

It was before reaching the Big Woods, that alligator-holes were first
pointed out to us, with a caution to avoid them. They extend from an
aperture, obliquely, under ground, to a large cavern, the walls of
which are puddled by the motions of the animal; and, being partly
filled with water, form a comfortable amphibious residence. A horseman
is liable, not only to breaking through near the orifice, but to being
precipitated into the den itself, where he will find awaiting him, a
disagreeable mixture of mire and angry jaws. In the deep water of the
bottoms, we met with no snakes; but the pools were everywhere alive
with them. We saw a great variety of long-legged birds, apparently on
friendly terms with all the reptiles.

A day’s journey took us through the Big Woods, and across Calcasieu
to Lake Charles. We were not prepared to find the Calcasieu a superb
and solemn river, two hundred and thirty yards across and forty-five
feet deep. It is navigable for forty miles, but at its mouth has a
bar, on which is sometimes only eighteen inches of water, ordinarily
thirty inches. Schooners of light draft ascend it, bringing supplies,
and taking out the cotton raised within its reach. Lake Charles is an
insignificant village, upon the bank of a pleasant, clear lakelet,
several miles in extent.

From the Big Woods to Opelousas, there was no change in the monotonous
scenery. Everywhere extended the immense moist plain, being alternate
tracts of grass and pine. Nearer Opelousas, oak appears in groups
with the pine, and the soil is darker and more fertile. Here the land
was mostly taken up, partly by speculators, in view of the Opelousas
Railway, then commenced. But, in all the western portion of the
district, the land is still government property, and many of the people
squatters. Sales are seldom made, but the estimated price of the land
is fifty cents an acre.

Some of the timbered land, for a few years after clearing, yields good
crops of corn and sweet potatoes. Cotton is seldom attempted, and sugar
only for family use. Oats are sometimes grown, but the yield is small,
and seldom thrashed from the straw. We noted one field of poor rye. So
wet a region and so warm a climate suggested rice, and, were the land
sufficiently fertile, it would, doubtless, become a staple production.
It is now only cultivated for home use, the bayou bottoms being rudely
arranged for flowing the crop. But without manure no profitable return
can be obtained from breaking the prairie, and the only system of
manuring in use is that of ploughing up occasionally the cow-pens of
the herdsmen.

The road was now distinctly marked enough, but had frequent and
embarrassing forks, which occasioned us almost as much annoyance as the
clouds of musquitoes which, east of the Sabine, hovered continually
about our horses and our heads. Notions of distance we found incredibly
vague. At Lake Charles we were informed that the exact distance to
Opelousas was ninety-six miles. After riding eight hours, we were
told by a respectable gentleman that the distance from his house was
one hundred and twenty miles. The next evening the distance was forty
miles; and the following evening a gentleman who met us stated first
that it was “a good long way;” next, that it was “thirty or forty
miles, and damn’d long ones, too.” About four miles beyond him, we
reached the twentieth mile-post.

Across the bayous of any size, bridges had been constructed, but so
rudely built of logs that the traveller, where possible, left them for
a ford.

The people, after passing the frontier, changed in every prominent
characteristic. French became the prevailing language, and French
the prevailing manners. The gruff Texan bidding, “Sit up, stranger;
take some fry!” became a matter of recollection, of which “Monsieur,
la soupe est servie,” was the smooth substitute. The good-nature of
the people was an incessant astonishment. If we inquired the way, a
contented old gentleman waddled out and showed us also his wife’s
house-pet, an immense white crane, his big crop of peaches, his old
fig-tree, thirty feet in diameter of shade, and to his wish of “bon
voyage” added for each a bouquet of the jessamines we were admiring.
The homes were homes, not settlements on speculation; the house,
sometimes of logs, it is true, but hereditary logs, and more often of
smooth lumber, with deep and spreading galleries on all sides for the
coolest comfort. For form, all ran or tended to run to a peaked and
many-chimneyed centre, with, here and there, a suggestion of a dormar
window. Not all were provided with figs and jessamines, but each had
some inclosure betraying good intentions.

The monotonous landscape did not invite to loitering, and we passed
but three nights in houses by the road. The first was that of an old
Italian-French emigrant, known as “Old Man Corse.” He had a name of
his own, which he recalled for us, but in forty years it had been lost
and superseded by this designation, derived from his birth-place, the
island of Corsica. This mixture of nationalities in language must be
breeding for future antiquaries a good deal of amusing labour. Next day
we were recommended to stop at Jack Bacon’s, and, although we would
have preferred to avoid an American’s, did so rather than go further,
and found our Jack Bacon a Creole, named Jacques Béguin. This is equal
to Tuckapaw and Nakitosh, the general pronunciation of Attakapas and
Nachitoches.

The house of Old Man Corse stood in the shade of oaks, figs, and
cypresses, upon the bank of a little bayou, looking out upon the broad
prairie. It was large and comfortable, with wide galleries and dormar
windows, supported by a negro-hut and a stable. Ornamental axe-work
and rude decorative joinery were abundant. The roof was of large
split shingles, much warped in the sun. As we entered and took seats
by the fire, the room reminded us, with its big fire-place, and old
smoke-stained and time-toned cypress beams and ceiling, and its rude
but comfortable aspect, of the Acadian fireside:

     “In doors, warm by the wide-mouthed fire-place, idly the farmer
     Sat in his elbow-chair, and watched how the flames and the
       smoke-wreaths
     Struggled together, like foes in a burning city. Behind him,
     Nodding and mocking along the wall, with gestures fantastic,
     Darted his own huge shadow, and vanished away into darkness,
     Faces, clumsily carved in oak, on the back of his arm-chair,
     Laughed in the flickering light, and the pewter plates on the
       dresser
     Caught and reflected the flame, as shields of armies the sunshine.”

The tall, elderly, busy housewife bustled about with preparations for
supper, while we learned that they had been settled here forty years,
and had never had reason to regret their emigration. The old man had
learnt French, but no English. The woman could speak some “American,”
as she properly termed it. Asking her about musquitoes, we received a
reply in French, that they were more abundant some years than others;
then, as no quantitative adjective of sufficient force occurred to her,
she added, “Three years ago, oh! heaps of musquitoes, sir, _heaps_!
worse as now.”

She laid the table to the last item, and prepared everything nicely,
but called a negro girl to wait upon us. The girl stood quiet behind
us, the mistress helping us, and practically anticipating all our wants.

The supper was of venison, in ragoût, with a sauce that savoured of the
south of France; there was a side dish of hominy, a jug of sweet milk,
and wheat-bread in loaf—the first since Houston.

In an evening smoke, upon the settle, we learned that there were
many Creoles about here, most of whom learned English, and had their
children taught English at the schools. The Americans would not take
the trouble to learn French. They often intermarried. A daughter of
their own was the wife of an American neighbour. We asked if they knew
of a distinct people here called Acadians. Oh yes, they knew many
settled in the vicinity, descended from some nation that came here in
the last century. They had now no peculiarities. There were but few
free negroes just here, but at Opelousas and Niggerville there were
many, some of whom were rich and owned slaves, though a part were
unmixed black in colour. They kept pretty much by themselves, not
attempting to enter white society.

As we went to look at our horses, two negroes followed us to the stable.

“Dat horse a Tennessee horse, mass’r,” said one.

“Yes, he was born in Tennessee.”

“Born in Tennessee and raised by a Dutchman,” said the other, sotto
voce, I suppose, quoting a song.

“Why, were you born in Tennessee?” I asked.

“No, sar, I was born in dis State.”

“How comes it you speak English so much better than your master?”

“Ho, ho, my old mass’r, he don’ speak it at all; my missus she speak it
better’n my mass’r do, but you see I war raised on de parara, to der
eastward, whar thar’s heaps of ’Mericans; so I larned it good.”

He spoke it, with a slight accent, while the other, whom he called
Uncle Tom, I observed did not. I asked Uncle Tom if he was born in the
State.

“_No, sar!_ I was born in _Varginny_! in ole Varginny, mass’r. I was
raised in —— county [in the West]. I was twenty-two year ole when I
came away from thar, and I’ve been in this country, forty year come
next Christmas.”

“Then you are sixty years old.”

“Yes, sar, amos’ sixty. But I’d like to go back to Varginny. Ho, ho! I
’ould like to go back and live in ole Varginny, again.”

“Why so? I thought niggers generally liked this country best—I’ve been
told so—because it is so warm here.”

“Ho, ho! it’s mos’ too warm here, sometime, and I can’t work at my
trade here. Sometimes for three months I don’ go in my shop, on’y
Sundays to work for mysef.”

“What is your trade?”

“I’m a blacksmith, mass’r. I used to work at blacksmithing all the time
in ole Virginny, ironin’ waggons, and shoein’ horses for the folks
that work in the mines. But here, can’t get nothun’ to do. In this
here sile, if you sharpen up a plough in the spring o’ the year, it’ll
last all summer, and horses don’ want shoeing once a year, here on the
parara. I’ve got a good mass’r here, tho’; the ole man ain’t hard on
his niggers.”

“Was your master hard in Virginia?”

“Well, I wos hired to different mass’rs, sar, thar, afore I wos sole
off. I was sole off to a sheriff’s sale, mass’r: I wos sole for fifteen
hunerd an’ fifty dollars; I fetched that on the block, cash, I did,
and the man as bought me he brung me down here, and sole me for two
thousand two hunerd dollars.”

“That was a good price; a very high price in those days.”

“Yes, sar, it was that—ho, ho, ho! It was a man by the name of ——,
from Tennessee, what bought me. He made a business of goin’ roun’ and
buyin’ up people, and bringin’ ’em down here, speculatin’ on ’em. Ho,
ho! he did well that time. But I’d ’a’ liked it better, for all that,
to have stayed in ole Varginny. ’Tain’t the heat, tho’ it’s too hot
here sometimes; but you know, sar, I was born and raised in Varginny,
and seems like ’twould be pleasanter to live thar. It’s kinder natural
to people to hanker arter the place they wos raised in. Ho, ho! I’d
like it a heap better, tho’ this ole man’s a good mass’r; never had no
better mass’r.”

“I suppose you became a Catholic after you got here?”

“Yes, sar” (hesitatingly).

“I suppose all the people are Catholics here?”

“Here? Oh, no, sar; they was whar I wos first in this here country;
they wos all Catholics there.”

“Well, they are all Catholics here, too—ain’t they?”

“Here, sar? Here, sar? Oh, no, sar!”

“Why, your master is not a Protestant, is he?”

After two deep groans, he replied in a whisper:

“Oh, sar, they don’ have no meetin’ o’ no kind, roun’ here!”

“There are a good many free negroes in this country, ain’t there?”

“What! here, sar? Oh, no, sar; no such good luck as that in this
country.”

“At Opelousas, I understood, there were a good many.”

“Oh, but them wos born free, sar, under old Spain, sar.”

“Yes, those I mean.”

“Oh, yes, there’s lots o’ _them_; some of ’em rich, and some of ’em—a
good many of ’em—goes to the penitentiary—you know what that is. White
folks goes to the penitenti’ry, too—ho! ho!—sometimes.”

“I have understood many of them were quite rich.”

“Oh, yes, o’ course they is: they started free, and ain’t got nobody to
work for but theirselves; of course they gets rich. Some of ’em owns
slaves—heaps of ’em. That ar ain’t right.”

“Not right! why not?”

“Why, you don’ think it’s right for one nigger to own another nigger!
One nigger’s no business to sarve another. It’s bad enough to have to
sarve a white man without being paid for it, without having to sarve a
black man.”

“Don’t they treat their slaves well?”

“No, sar, they don’t. There ain’t no nations so bad masters to niggers
as them free niggers, though there’s some, I’ve heard, wos very kind;
but—I wouldn’t sarve ’em if they wos—no!—Does you live in Tennessee,
mass’r?”

“No—in New York.”

“There’s heaps of Quakers in New York, ain’t there, mass’r?”

“No—not many.”

“I’ve always heard there was.”

“In Philadelphia there are a good many.”

“Oh, yes! in Philadelphia, and in Winchester, and in New Jarsey. I
know—ho! ho! I’ve been in those countries, and I’ve seen ’em. I wos
raised nigh by Winchester, and I’ve been all about there. Used to iron
waggons and shoe horses in that country. Dar’s a road from Winchester
to Philadelphia—right straight. Quakers all along. Right good people,
dem Quakers—ho! ho!—I know.”[2]

We slept in well-barred beds, and awoke long after sunrise. As soon as
we were stirring, black coffee was sent into us, and at breakfast we
had _café au lait_ in immense bowls in the style of the _crêmeries_ of
Paris. The woman remarked that our dog had slept in their bed-room.
They had taken our saddle-bags and blankets with them for security,
and Judy had insisted on following them. “Dishonest black people might
come here and get into the room,” explained the old man. “Yes; and some
of our own people in the house might come to them. Such things have
happened here, and you never can trust any of them,” said the woman,
her own black girl behind her chair.

At Mr. Béguin’s (Bacon’s) we stopped on a Saturday night: and I was
obliged to feed my own horse in the morning, the negroes having all
gone off before daylight. The proprietor was a Creole farmer, owning
a number of labourers, and living in comfort. The house was of the
ordinary Southern double-cabined style, the people speaking English,
intelligent, lively, and polite, giving us good entertainment at the
usual price. At a rude corn-mill belonging to Mr. Béguin, we had
noticed among the negroes an Indian boy, in negro clothing, and about
the house were two other Indians—an old man and a young man; the first
poorly clad, the other gaily dressed in a showy printed calico frock,
and worked buckskin leggings, with beads and tinsel ornaments, a
great turban of Scotch shawl-stuff on his head. It appeared they were
Choctaws, of whom a good many lived in the neighbourhood. The two were
hired for farm labour at three bits (37½ cents) a day. The old man had
a field of his own, in which stood handsome corn. Some of them were
industrious, but none were steady at work—often refusing to go on, or
absenting themselves from freaks. I asked about the boy at the mill. He
lived there and did work, getting no wages, but “living there with the
niggers.” They seldom consort; our host knew but one case in which a
negro had an Indian wife.

At Lake Charles we had seen a troop of Alabamas, riding through the
town with baskets and dressed deerskins for sale. They were decked with
feathers, and dressed more showily than the Choctaws, but in calico:
and over their heads, on horseback—curious progress of manners—all
carried open, black cotton _umbrellas_.

       *       *       *       *       *

Our last night in this region was spent in a house which we reached
at sundown of a Sunday afternoon. It proved to be a mere cottage, in a
style which has grown to be common along our road. The walls are low,
of timber and mud; the roof, high, and sloping from a short ridge in
all directions; and the chimney of sticks and mud. The space is divided
into one long living-room, having a kitchen at one end and a bed-room
at the other. As we rode up, we found only a little boy, who answered
us in French. His mother was milking, and his father out in the field.

We rode on to the fence of the field, which enclosed twenty acres,
planted in cotton, corn, and sweet potatoes, and waited until the
proprietor reached us and the end of his furrow. He stopped before
replying, to unhitch his horse, then gave consent to our staying in
his house, and we followed his lead to the yard, where we unsaddled
our horses. He was a tall, stalwart man in figure, with a large
intellectual head, but as uninformed, we afterwards discovered, as any
European peasant; though he wore, as it were, an ill-fitting dress of
rude independence in manner, such as characterises the Western man.

The field was well cultivated, and showed the best corn we had seen
east of the Brazos. Three negro men and two women were at work, and
continued hoeing until sunset. They were hired, it appeared, by the
proprietor, at four bits (fifty cents) a day. He was in the habit of
making use of the Sundays of the slaves of the neighbourhood in this
way, paying them sometimes seventy-five cents a day.

On entering the house, we were met by two young boys, gentle and
winning in manner, coming up of their own accord to offer us their
hands. They were immediately set to work by their father at grinding
corn, in the steel-mill, for supper. The task seemed their usual one,
yet very much too severe for their strength, as they were slightly
built, and not over ten years old. Taking hold at opposite sides of
the winch, they ground away, outside the door, for more than an hour,
constantly stopping to take breath, and spurred on by the voice of the
papa, if the delay were long.

They spoke only French, though understanding questions in English. The
man and his wife—an energetic but worn woman—spoke French or English
indifferently, even to one another, changing, often, in a single
sentence. He could not tell us which was his mother tongue; he had
always been as much accustomed to the one as to the other. He said he
was not a Frenchman, but a native, American-born; but afterwards called
himself a “Dutch-American,” a phrase he was unable to explain. He
informed us that there were many “Dutch-French” here, that is, people
who were Dutch, but who spoke French.

The room into which we were ushered, was actually without an article
of furniture. The floor was of boards, while those of the other two
rooms were of trodden clay. The mud-walls had no other relief than the
mantel, on which stood a Connecticut clock, two small mirrors, three
or four cheap cups and saucers, and a paste brooch in the form of a
cross, pinned upon paper, as in a jeweller’s shop. Chairs were brought
in from the kitchen, having deer-hide seats, from which sprang forth an
atrocious number of fresh fleas.

We had two or three hours to wait for our late supper, and thus more
than ample time to converse with our host, who proceeded to twist and
light a shuck cigar. He made, he said, a little cotton, which he hauled
ten miles to be ginned and baled. For this service he paid seventy-five
cents a hundred weight, in which the cost of bagging was not included.
The planter who baled it, also sold it for him, sending it, with his
own, to a factor in New Orleans, by steamboat from Niggerville, just
beyond Opelousas. Beside cotton, he sold every year some beef cattle.
He had a good many cows, but didn’t exactly know how many. Corn, too,
he sometimes sold, but only to neighbours, who had not raised enough
for themselves. It would not pay to haul it to any market. The same
applied to sweet potatoes, which were considered worth seventy-five
cents a barrel.

The “range” was much poorer than formerly. It was crowded, and people
would have to take their stock somewhere else in four or five years
more, or they would starve. He didn’t know what was going to become of
poor folks, rich people were taking up the public land so fast, induced
by the proposed railroad to New Orleans.

More or less stock was always starved in winter. The worst time for
them was when a black gnat, called the “eye-breaker,” comes out. This
insect breeds in the low woodlands, and when a freshet occurs in winter
is driven out in swarms upon the prairies, attacking cattle terribly.
They were worse than all manner of musquitoes, flies, or other insects.
Cattle would herd together then, and wander wildly about, not looking
for the best feed, and many would get killed. But this did not often
happen.

Horses and cattle had degenerated much within his recollection. No
pains were taken to improve breeds. People, now-a-days, had got
proud, and when they had a fine colt would break him for a carriage
or riding-horse, leaving only the common scurvy sort to run with the
mares. This was confirmed by our observation, the horses about here
being wretched in appearance, and the grass short and coarse.

When we asked to wash before supper, a shallow cake-pan was brought
and set upon the window-seat, and a mere rag offered us for towel.
Upon the supper-table, we found two wash-bowls, one filled with milk,
the other with molasses. We asked for water, which was given us in one
battered tin cup. The dishes, besides the bacon and bread, were fried
eggs and sweet potatoes. The bowl of molasses stood in the centre of
the table, and we were pressed to partake of it, as the family did,
by dipping in it bits of bread. But how it was expected to be used at
breakfast, when we had bacon and potatoes, with spoons, but no bread, I
cannot imagine, the family not breakfasting with us.

The night was warm, and musquitoes swarmed, but we carried with us a
portable tent-shaped bar, which we hung over the feather bed, upon the
floor, and rested soundly amid their mad singing.

The distance to Opelousas, our Frenchman told us, was fifteen miles by
the road, though only ten miles in a direct line. We found it lined
with farms, whose division-fences the road always followed, frequently
changing its course in so doing at a right angle. The country was very
wet and unattractive. About five miles from the town, begin plantations
on an extensive scale, upon better soil, and here were large gangs of
negroes at work upon cotton, with their hoes.

At the outskirts of the town, we waded the last pool, and entered, with
a good deal of satisfaction, the peaceful shaded streets. Reaching the
hotel, we were not so instantly struck as perhaps we should have been,
with the overwhelming advantages of civilization, which sat in the form
of a landlord, slapping with an agate-headed, pliable cane, his patent
leather boots, poised, at easy height, upon one of the columns of the
gallery. We were suffered to take off our saddle-bags, and to wait
until waiting was no longer a pleasure, before civilization, wringing
his cane against the floor, but not removing his cigar, brought his
patent leathers to our vicinity.

After some conversation, intended as animated upon one side and
ineffably indifferent on the other, our horses obtained notice from
that exquisitely vague eye, but a further introduction was required
before our persons became less than transparent, for the boots walked
away, and became again a subject of contemplation upon the column,
leaving us, with our saddle-bags, upon the steps. After inquiring,
of a bystander if this glossy individual were the actual landlord,
we attacked him in a tone likely to produce either a revolver-shot
or a room, but whose effect was to obtain a removal of the cigar and
a gentle survey, ending in a call for a boy to show the gentlemen to
number thirteen.

After an hour’s delay, we procured water, and were about to enjoy
very necessary ablutions, when we observed that the door of our room
was partly of uncurtained glass. A shirt was pinned to this, and
ceremonies were about beginning, when a step came down the passage,
and a gentleman put his hand through a broken pane, and lifted the
obstruction, wishing “to see what was going on so damn’d secret in
number thirteen.” When I walked toward him hurriedly, _in puris
naturalibus_, he drew hastily and entered the next room.

On the gallery of the hotel, after dinner, a fine-looking man—who was
on the best of terms with every one—familiar with the judge—and who had
been particularly polite to me, at the dinner-table, said to another:

“I hear you were very unlucky with that girl you bought of me, last
year?”

“Yes, I was; very unlucky. She died with her first child, and the child
died, too.”

“Well, that was right hard for you. She was a fine girl. I don’t reckon
you lost less than five thousand dollars, when she died.”

“No, sir, not a dollar less.”

“Well, it came right hard upon you—just beginning so.”

“Yes, I was foolish, I suppose, to risk so much on the life of a single
woman; but I’ve got a good start again now, for all that. I’ve got two
right likely girls; one of them’s got a fine boy, four months old, and
the other’s with child—and old Pine Knot’s as hearty as ever.”

“Is he? Hasn’t been sick at all, eh?”

“Yes; he was sick very soon after I bought him of you; but he got well
soon.”

“That’s right. I’d rather a nigger would be sick early, after he comes
into this country; for he’s bound to be acclimated, sooner or later,
and the longer it’s put off, the harder it goes with him.”

The man was a regular negro trader. He told me that he had a partner
in Kentucky, and that they owned a farm there, and another one
here. His partner bought negroes, as opportunity offered to get
them advantageously, and kept them on their Kentucky farm; and he
went on occasionally, and brought the surplus to their Louisiana
plantation—where he held them for sale.

“So-and-so is very hard upon you,” said another man, to him as he still
sat, smoking his cigar, on the gallery, after dinner.

“Why so? He’s no business to complain; I told him just exactly what the
nigger was, before I sold him (laughing, as if there was a concealed
joke). It was all right—all right. I heard that he sold him again for a
thousand dollars; and the people that bought him, gave him two hundred
dollars to let them off from the bargain. I’m sure he can’t complain of
me. It was a fair transaction. He knew just what he was buying.”

An intelligent man whom I met here, and who had been travelling most of
the time during the last two years in Louisiana, having business with
the planters, described the condition of the new slaveholders and the
poorer planters as being very miserable.

He had sometimes found it difficult to get food, even when he was
in urgent need of it, at their houses. The lowest class live much
from hand to mouth, and are often in extreme destitution. This was
more particularly the case with those who lived on the rivers; those
who resided on the prairies were seldom so much reduced. The former
now live only on those parts of the river to which the back-swamp
approaches nearest; that is, where there is but little valuable land,
that can be appropriated for plantation-purposes. They almost all
reside in communities, very closely housed in poor cabins. If there
is any considerable number of them, there is to be always found,
among the cluster of their cabins, a church, and a billiard and a
gambling-room—and the latter is always occupied, and play going on.

They almost all appear excessively apathetic, sleepy, and stupid, if
you see them at home; and they are always longing and waiting for some
excitement. They live for excitement, and will not labour, unless it is
violently, for a short time, to gratify some passion.

This was as much the case with the women as the men. The women were
often handsome, stately, and graceful, and, ordinarily, exceedingly
kind; but languid, and incredibly indolent, unless there was a ball,
or some other excitement, to engage them. Under excitement, they were
splendidly animated, impetuous, and eccentric. One moment they seemed
possessed by a devil, and the next by an angel.

The Creoles[3] are inveterate gamblers—rich and poor alike. The
majority of wealthy Creoles, he said, do nothing to improve their
estate; and are very apt to live beyond their income. They borrow and
play, and keep borrowing to play, as long as they can; but they will
not part with their land, and especially with their home, as long as
they can help it, by any sacrifice.

The men are generally dissolute. They have large families, and a
great deal of family affection. He did not know that they had more
than Anglo-Saxons; but they certainly manifested a great deal more,
and, he thought, had more domestic happiness. If a Creole farmer’s
child marries, he will build a house for the new couple, adjoining
his own; and when another marries, he builds another house—so, often
his whole front on the river is at length occupied. Then he begins
to build others, back of the first—and so, there gradually forms a
little village, wherever there is a large Creole family, owning any
considerable piece of land. The children are poorly educated, and are
not brought up to industry, at all.

The planters living near them, as their needs increase, lend them
money, and get mortgages on their land, or, in some way or other, if it
is of any value, force them to part with it. Thus they are every
year reduced, more and more, to the poorest lands; and the majority now
are able to get but a very poor living, and would not be able to live
at all in a Northern climate. They are nevertheless—even the poorest of
them—habitually gay and careless, as well as kind-hearted, hospitable,
and dissolute—working little, and spending much of their time at
church, or at balls, or the gaming-table.

There are very many wealthy Creole planters, who are as cultivated
and intelligent as the better class of American planters, and usually
more refined. The Creoles, he said, did not work their slaves as
hard as the Americans; but, on the other hand, they did not feed or
clothe them nearly as well, and he had noticed universally, on the
Creole plantations, a large number of “used-up hands”—slaves, sore
and crippled, or invalided for some cause. On all sugar plantations,
he said, they work the negroes excessively, in the grinding season;
often cruelly. Under the usual system, to keep the fires burning, and
the works constantly supplied, eighteen hours’ work was required of
every negro, in twenty-four—leaving but six for rest. The work of most
of them, too, was very hard. They were generally, during the grinding
season, liberally supplied with food and coffee, and were induced, as
much as possible, to make a kind of frolic of it; yet, on the Creole
plantations, he thought they did not, even in the grinding season,
often get meat.

I remarked that the law, in Louisiana, required that meat should be
regularly served to the negroes.

“O, those laws are very little regarded.”

“Indeed?”

“Certainly. Suppose you are my neighbour; if you maltreat your
negroes, and tell me of it, or I see it, am I going to prefer charges
against you to the magistrates? I might possibly get you punished
according to law; but if I did, or did not, I should have you, and
your family and friends, far and near, for my mortal enemies. There is
a law of the State that negroes shall not be worked on Sundays; but
I have seen negroes at work almost every Sunday, when I have been in
the country, since I have lived in Louisiana.[4] I spent a Sunday once
with a gentleman, who did not work his hands at all on Sunday, even in
the grinding season; and he had got some of his neighbours to help him
build a school-house, which was used as a church on Sunday. He said,
there was not a plantation on either side of him, as far as he could
see, where the slaves were not generally worked on Sunday; but that,
after the church was started, several of them quit the practice, and
made their negroes go to the meeting. This made others discontented;
and after a year or two, the planters voted new trustees to the school,
and these forbid the house to be used for any other than school
purposes. This was done, he had no doubt, for the purpose of breaking
up the meetings, and to lessen the discontent of the slaves which were
worked on Sunday.”

It was said that the custom of working the negroes on Sunday was much
less common than formerly; if so, he thought that it must have formerly
been universal.

He had lived, when a boy, for several years on a farm in Western
New York, and afterwards, for some time, at Rochester, and was well
acquainted with the people generally, in the valley of the Genesee.

I asked him if he thought, among the intelligent class of farmers and
planters, people of equal property lived more happily in New York or
Louisiana. He replied immediately, as if he had carefully considered
the topic, that, with some rare exceptions, farmers worth forty
thousand dollars lived in far greater comfort, and enjoyed more refined
and elegant leisure, than planters worth three hundred thousand, and
that farmers of the ordinary class, who laboured with their own hands,
and were worth some six thousand dollars, in the Genesee valley,
lived in far greater comfort, and in all respects more enviably, than
planters worth forty thousand dollars in Louisiana. The contrast was
especially favourable to the New York farmer, in respect to books
and newspapers. He might travel several days, and call on a hundred
planters, and hardly see in their houses more than a single newspaper
a-piece, in most cases; perhaps none at all: nor any books, except
a Bible, and some government publications, that had been franked to
them through the post-office, and perhaps a few religious tracts or
school-books.

The most striking difference that he observed between the
Anglo-Americans of Louisiana and New York, was the impulsive and
unreflective habit of the former, in doing business. He mentioned, as
illustrative of this, the almost universal passion among the planters
for increasing their negro-stock. It appeared evident to him, that
the market price of negroes was much higher than the prices of cotton
and sugar warranted; but it seemed as if no planter ever made any
calculation of that kind. The majority of planters, he thought, would
always run in debt to the extent of their credit for negroes, whatever
was asked for them, without making any calculation of the reasonable
prospects of their being able to pay their debts. When any one made a
good crop, he would always expect that his next one would be better,
and make purchases in advance upon such expectation. When they were
dunned, they would attribute their inability to pay, to accidental
short crops, and always were going ahead risking everything, in
confidence that another year of luck would favour them, and a big crop
make all right.

If they had a full crop, probably there would be good crops everywhere
else, and prices would fall, and then they would whine and complain, as
if the merchants were to blame for it, and would insinuate that no one
could be expected to pay his debts when prices =were= so low, and that
it would be dangerous to press such an unjust claim. And, if the crops
met with any misfortune, from floods, or rot, or vermin, they would cry
about it like children when rain fell upon a holiday, as if they had
never thought of the possibility of such a thing, and were very hard
used.[5]

He had talked with many sugar-planters who were strong Cuba war and
annexation men, and had rarely found that any of these had given the
first thought to the probable effect the annexation of Cuba would
have on their home interests. It was mainly a romantic excitement and
enthusiasm, inflamed by senseless appeals to their patriotism and their
combativeness. They had got the idea, that patriotism was necessarily
associated with hatred and contempt of any other country but their
own, and the only foreigners to be regarded with favour were those
who desired to surrender themselves to us. They did not reflect that
the annexation of Cuba would necessarily be attended by the removal
of the duty on sugar, and would bring them into competition with the
sugar-planters of that island, where the advantages for growing cane
were so much greater than in Louisiana.

To some of the very wealthy planters who favoured the movement,
and who were understood to have taken some of the Junta[6] stock,
he gave credit for greater sagacity. He thought it was the purpose
of these men, if Cuba could be annexed, to get possession of large
estates there: then, with the advantages of their greater skill in
sugar-making, and better machinery than that which yet was in use
in Cuba, and with much cheaper land and labour, and a far better
climate for cane growing than that of Louisiana, it would be easy for
them to accumulate large fortunes in a few years; but he thought the
sugar-planters who remained in Louisiana would be ruined by it.

The principal subscribers to the Junta stock at the South, he thought,
were land speculators; persons who expected that, by now favouring
the movement, they would be able to obtain from the revolutionary
government large grants of land in the island as gratuities in reward
of their services or at nominal prices, which after annexation
would rise rapidly in value; or persons who now owned wild land in
the States, and who thought that if Cuba were annexed the African
slave-trade would be re-established, either openly or clandestinely,
with the States, and their lands be increased in value, by the greater
cheapness with which they could then be stocked with labourers.

I find these views confirmed in a published letter from a Louisiana
planter, to one of the members of Congress, from that State; and I
insert an extract of that letter, as it is evidently from a sensible
and far-thinking man, to show on how insecure a basis rests the
prosperity of the slave-holding interest in Louisiana. The fact would
seem to be, that, if it were not for the tariff on foreign sugars,
sugar could not be produced at all by slave-labour; and that a
discontinuance of sugar culture would almost desolate the State.

     “The question now naturally comes up to you and to me, Do we
     Louisianians desire the possession of Cuba? It is not what the
     provision dealers of the West, or the shipowners of the North may
     wish for, but what the State of Louisiana, as a State, may deem
     consistent with her best interests. My own opinion on the subject
     is not a new one. It was long ago expressed to high officers of
     our Government, neither of whom ever hesitated to acknowledge that
     it was, in the main, correct. That opinion was and is, _that the
     acquisition of Cuba would prove the ruin of our State_. I found
     this opinion on the following reasons: Cuba has already land
     enough in cultivation to produce, when directed by American skill,
     energy, and capital, twenty millions of tons of sugar. In addition
     to this she has virgin soil, only needing roads to bring it,
     with a people of the least pretension to enterprise, into active
     working, sufficient nearly to double this; all of which would be
     soon brought into productiveness were it our own, with the whole
     American market free to it. If any man supposes that the culture
     of sugar in our State can be sustained in the face of this, I have
     only to say that he can suppose anything. We have very nearly,
     if not quite, eighty millions invested in the sugar culture. My
     idea is that _three-fourths of this would, so far as the State is
     concerned, be annihilated at a blow_. The planter who is in debt,
     would find his negroes and machinery sold and despatched to Cuba
     for him, and he who is independent would go there in self-defence.
     What will become of the other portion of the capital? It consists
     of land, on which I maintain there can be produced no other crop
     but sugar, under present auspices, that will bear the contest
     with cocoa,[7] and the expense and risk of levees, as it regards
     the larger part of it, and the difficulty of transportation for
     the remainder. But supposing that it will be taken up by some
     other cultivation, that in any case must be a work of time, and
     in this case a very long time for unacclimated men. It is not
     unreasonable, then, to suppose that this whole capital will,
     for purposes of taxation, be withdrawn from Louisiana. From
     whence, then, is to come the revenue for the support of our State
     government, for the payment of the interest on our debt, and the
     eventual redemption of the principal? Perhaps repudiation may be
     recommended; but you and I, my dear sir, are too old-fashioned
     to rob in that manner, or in any other. The only resort, then,
     is double taxation on the cotton planter, which will drive him,
     without much difficulty, to Texas, to Arkansas, and Mississippi.”

       *       *       *       *       *

_Washington._—The inn, here, when we arrived, was well filled with
guests, and my friend and I were told that we must sleep together. In
the room containing our bed there were three other beds; and although
the outside of the house was pierced with windows, nowhere more than
four feet apart, not one of them opened out of our room. A door opened
into the hall, another into the dining-room, and at the side of our
bed was a window into the dining-room, through which, betimes in the
morning, we could, with our heads on our pillows, see the girls setting
the breakfast-tables. Both the doors were provided with glass windows,
without curtains. Hither, about eleven o’clock, we “retired.” Soon
afterwards, hearing something moving under the bed, I asked, “Who’s
there?” and was answered by a girl, who was burrowing for eggs; part of
the stores of the establishment being kept in boxes, in this convenient
locality. Later, I was awakened by a stranger attempting to enter my
bed. I expostulated, and he replied that it was his bed, and nobody
else had a right to his place in it. Who was I, he asked, angrily, and
where was his partner? “Here I am,” answered a voice from another bed;
and without another word, he left us. I slept but little, and woke
feverish, and with a headache, caused by the want of ventilation.

While at the dinner-table, a man asked, as one might at the North,
if the steamer had arrived, if there had been “any fights to-day?”
After dinner, while we were sitting on the gallery, loud cursing, and
threatening voices were heard in the direction of the bar-room, which,
as at Nachitoches, was detached, and at a little distance from the
hotel. The company, except myself and the other New-Yorker, immediately
ran towards it. After ten minutes, one returned, and said—

“I don’t believe there’ll be any fight; they are both cowards.”

“Are they preparing for a fight?”

“O, yes; they are loading pistols in the coffee-room, and there’s a
man outside, in the street, who has a revolver and a knife, and who
is challenging another to come out. He swears he’ll wait there till
he does come out; but in my opinion he’ll think better of it, when he
finds that the other feller’s got pistols, too.”

“What’s the occasion of the quarrel?”

“Why, the man in the street says the other one insulted him this
morning, and that he had his hand on his knife, at the very moment he
did so, so he couldn’t reply. And now he says he’s ready to talk with
him, and he wants to have him come out, and as many of his friends as
are a mind to, may come with him; he’s got enough for all of ’em, he
says. He’s got two revolvers, I believe.”

We did not hear how it ended; but, about an hour afterwards, I saw
three men, with pistols in their hands, coming from the bar-room.

The next day, I saw, in the streets of the same town, two boys running
from another, who was pursuing them with a large, open dirk-knife in
his hand, and every appearance of ungovernable rage in his face.

The boat, for which I was waiting, not arriving, I asked the
landlady—who appeared to be a German Jewess—if I could not have a
better sleeping-room. She showed me one, which she said I might use for
a single night; but, if I remained another, I must not refuse to give
it up. It had been occupied by another gentleman, and she thought he
might return the next day, and would want it again; and, if I remained
in it, he would be very angry that they had not reserved it for him,
although they were under no obligation to him. “He is a dangerous man,”
she observed, “and my husband, he’s a quick-tempered man, and, if they
get to quarrelling about it, ther’ll be knives about, sure. It always
frightens me to see knives drawn.”

A Texas drover, who stayed over night at the hotel, being asked, as
he was about to leave in the morning, if he was not going to have his
horse shod, replied:

“No sir! it’ll be a damn’d long spell ’fore I pay for having a horse
shod. I reckon, if God Almighty had thought it right hosses should
have iron on thar feet, he’d a put it thar himself. I don’t pretend
to be a pious man myself; but I a’nt a-goin’ to run agin the will of
God Almighty, though thar’s some, that calls themselves ministers of
Christ, that does it.”



CHAPTER II.

A TRIP INTO NORTHERN MISSISSIPPI.


_Vicksburg, March 18th._—I arrived at this place last night, about
sunset, and was told that there was no hotel in the town except on the
wharf-boat, the only house used for that purpose having been closed a
few days ago on account of a difference of opinion between its owner
and his tenant.

There are no wharves on the Mississippi, or any of the southern rivers.
The wharf-boat is an old steamboat, with her paddle boxes and machinery
removed and otherwise dismantled, on which steamboats discharge
passengers and freight. The main deck is used as a warehouse, and, in
place of the furnace, has in this case a dram shop, a chandler’s shop,
a forwarding agency, and a telegraph office. Overhead, the saloon and
state-rooms remain, and with the bar-room and clerk’s office, kitchen
and barber’s shop, constitute a stationary though floating hostelry.

Though there were fifty or more rooms, and not a dozen guests, I
was obliged, about twelve o’clock, to admit a stranger who had been
gambling all the evening in the saloon, to occupy the spare shelf of my
closet. If a disposition to enjoy occasional privacy, or to exercise
a choice in one’s room-mates were a sure symptom of a monomania for
incendiarism, it could not be more carefully thwarted than it is at all
public-houses in this part of the world.

_Memphis, March 20th._—I reached this place to-day in forty-eight horns
by steamboat from Vicksburg.

Here, at the “Commercial Hotel,” I am favoured with an unusually
good-natured room-mate. He is smoking on the bed—our bed—now, and
wants to know what my business is here, and whether I carry a pistol
about me; also whether I believe that it isn’t lucky to play cards on
Sundays; which I do most strenuously, especially as this is a rainy
Sunday, and his second cigar is nearly smoked out.

This is a first-class hotel, and has, of course, printed bills of fare,
which, in a dearth of other literature, are not to be dropped at the
first glance. A copy of to-day’s is presented on the opposite page.

Being in a distant quarter of the establishment when a crash of the
gong announced dinner, I did not get to the table as early as some
others. The meal was served in a large, dreary room exactly like a
hospital ward; and it is a striking illustration of the celerity with
which everything is accomplished in our young country, that beginning
with the soup, and going on by the fish to the roasts, the first five
dishes I inquired for—when at last I succeeded in arresting one of the
negro boys—were “all gone;” and as the waiter had to go to the head of
the dining-room, or to the kitchen, to ascertain this fact upon each
demand, the majority of the company had left the table before I was
served at all. At length I said I would take anything that was still to
be had, and thereupon was provided immediately with some grimy bacon,
and greasy cabbage. This I commenced eating, but I no sooner paused for
a moment, than it was suddenly and surreptitiously removed, and its
place supplied, without the expression of any desire on my part, with
some other Memphitic chef d’œuvre, a close investigation of which left
me in doubt whether it was that denominated “sliced potatoe pie,” or
“Irish pudding.”

I congratulate myself that I have lived to see the day in which an
agitation for reform in our GREAT HOTEL SYSTEM has been commenced, and
I trust that a Society for the Revival of Village Inns will ere long
form one of the features of the May anniversaries.

     COMMERCIAL HOTEL.

     BY D. COCKRELL.

     BILL OF FARE.

     MARCH 20.


     SOUP.

     Oyster.


     FISH.

     Red.


     BOILED.

     Jole and Green.
     Ham.
     Corned beef.
     Bacon and turnips.
     Codfish egg sauce.
     Beef heart egg sauce.
     Leg of mutton caper sauce.
     Barbecued rabits.
     Boiled tongue.


     ROAST.

     Veal.
     Roast pig.
     Muscovie ducks.
     Kentucky beef.
     Mutton.
     Barbecued shoat.
     Roast bear meat.
     Roast pork.


     ENTREES.

     Fricasee pork.
     Calf feet mushroom sauce.
     Bear sausages.
     Harricane tripe.
     Stewed mutton.
     Browned rice.
     Calf feet madeira sauce.
     Stewed turkey wine sauce.
     Giblets volivon.
     Mutton omelett.
     Beef’s heart fricaseed.
     Cheese macaroni.
     Chicken chops robert sauce.
     Breast chicken madeira sauce.
     Beef kidney pickle sauce.
     Cod fish baked.
     Calf head wine sauce.


     FRUIT.

     Almonds.
     Rasins.
     Pecans.


     VEGETABLES.

     Boiled cabbage.
     Turnips.
     Cold slaugh.
     Hot slaugh.
     Pickled beets.
     Creole hominy.
     Crout cabbage.
     Oyster plant fried.
     Parsneps gravied.
     Stewed parsneps.
     Fried cabbage.
     Sweet potatoes spiced.
     Carrot.
     Sweet potatoes baked.
     Cabbage stuffed.
     Onions, boiled.
     Irish potatoes creamed and mashed.
     Irish potatoes browned.
     Boiled shellots.
     Scolloped carrots.
     Boiled turnips drawn butter.
     White beans.


     PASTRY.

     Currant pies.
     Lemon custard.
     Rice pudding.
     Cocoanut pie.
     Cranberry pies.
     Sliced potato pie.
     Chess cake.
     Irish pudding.
     Orange custard.
     Cranberry shapes.
     Green peach tarts.
     Green peach puff paste.
     Grape tarts.
     Huckle berry pies.
     Pound cake.
     Rheubarb tarts.
     Plum tarts.
     Calves feet jelly.
     Blamonge.
     Orange jelly.

A stage-coach conveyed the railroad passengers from the hotel to the
station, which was a mile or two out of town. As we were entering the
coach the driver observed with a Mephistophelean smile that we “needn’t
calk’late we were gwine to ride very fur,” and, as soon as we had
got into the country he stopped and asked all the men to get out and
walk, for, he condescended to explain, “it was as much as his hosses
could do to draw the ladies and the baggage.” It was quite true; the
horses were often obliged to stop, even with the diminished load, and
as there was a contract between myself and the proprietors by which,
for a stipulated sum of money by me to them in hand duly paid, they
had undertaken to convey me over this ground, I thought it would have
been no more than honest if they had looked out beforehand to have
either a stronger team, or a better road, provided. As is the custom
of our country, however, we allowed ourselves to be thus robbed with
great good-nature, and waded along ankle-deep in the mud, joking with
the driver and ready to put our shoulders to the wheels if it should
be necessary. Two portmanteaus were jerked off in heavy lurches of the
coach; the owners picked them up and carried them on their shoulders
till the horses stopped to breathe again. The train of course had
waited for us, and it continued to wait until another coach arrived,
when it started twenty minutes behind time.

After some forty miles of rail, nine of us were stowed away in another
stage coach. The road was bad, the weather foul. We proceeded slowly,
were often in imminent danger of being upset, and once were all obliged
to get out and help the horses drag the coach out of a slough; but
with smoking, and the occasional circulation of a small black bottle,
and a general disposition to be as comfortable as circumstances would
allow, four hours of coaching proved less fatiguing than one of the
ill-ventilated rail-cars.

Among the passengers was a “Judge,” resident in the vicinity, portly,
dignified, and well-informed; and a young man, who was a personal
friend of the member of Congress from the district, and who, as he
informed me, had, through the influence of this friend, a promise from
the President of honourable and lucrative employment under Government.
He was known to all the other passengers, and hailed by every one
on the road-side, by the title of Colonel. The Judge was ready to
converse about the country through which we were passing, and while
perfectly aware, as no one else seemed to be, that it bore anything
but an appearance of prosperity or attractiveness to a stranger, he
assured me that it was really improving in all respects quite rapidly.
There were few large plantations, but many small planters or rather
farmers, for cotton, though the principal source of cash income, was
much less exclusively an object of attention than in the more southern
parts of the State. A larger space was occupied by the maize and grain
crops. There were not a few small fields of wheat. In the afternoon,
when only the Colonel and myself were with him, the Judge talked about
slavery in a candid and liberal spirit. At present prices, he said,
nobody could afford to own slaves, unless he could engage them almost
exclusively in cotton-growing. It was undoubtedly a great injury to a
region like this, which was not altogether well adapted to cotton, to
be in the midst of a slaveholding country, for it prevented efficient
free labour. A good deal of cotton was nevertheless grown hereabouts
by white labour—by poor men who planted an acre or two, and worked
it themselves, getting the planters to gin and press it for them.
It was not at all uncommon for men to begin in this way and soon
purchase negroes on credit, and eventually become rich men. Most of
the plantations in this vicinity, indeed, belonged to men who had come
into the country with nothing within twenty years. Once a man got a
good start with negroes, unless the luck was much against him, nothing
but his own folly could prevent his becoming rich. The increase of his
negro property by births, if he took good care of it, must, in a few
years, make him independent. The worst thing, and the most difficult
to remedy, was the deplorable ignorance which prevailed. Latterly,
however, people were taking more pride in the education of their
children. Some excellent schools had been established, the teachers
generally from the North, and a great many children were sent to board
in the villages—county-seats—to attend them. This was especially
true of girls, who liked to live in the villages rather than on the
plantations. There was more difficulty in making boys attend school,
until, at least, they were too old to get much good from it.

The “Colonel” was a rough, merry, good-hearted, simple-minded man, and
kept all the would-be sober-sides of our coach body in irrepressible
laughter with queer observations on passing occurrences, anecdotes
and comic songs. It must be confessed that there is no charge which
the enemies of the theatre bring against the stage, that was not
duly illustrated, and that with a broadness which the taste of a
metropolitan audience would scarcely permit. Had Doctor —— and Doctor
—— been with me they would thereafter for ever have denied themselves,
and discountenanced in others, the use of such a means of travel. The
Colonel, notwithstanding, was of a most obliging disposition, and
having ascertained in what direction I was going, enumerated at least a
dozen families on the road, within some hundred miles, whom he invited
me to visit, assuring me that I should find pretty girls in all of
them, and a warm welcome, if I mentioned his name.

He told the Judge that his bar-bill on the boat, coming up from New
Orleans, was forty dollars—seventeen dollars the first night. But he
had made money—had won forty dollars of one gentleman. He confessed,
however, that he had lost fifteen by another, “but he saw how he did
it. He did not want to accuse him publicly, but he saw it and he meant
to write to him and tell him of it. He did not want to insult the
gentleman, only he did not want to have him think that he was so green
as not to know how he did it.”

While stopping for dinner at a village inn, a young man came into the
room where we all were, and asked the coachman what was to be paid for
a trunk which had been brought for him. The coachman said the charge
would be a dollar, which the young man thought excessive. The coachman
denied that it was so, said that it was what he had often been paid;
he should not take less. The young man finally agreed to wait for the
decision of the proprietor of the line. There was a woman in the room;
I noticed no loud words or angry tones, and had not supposed that there
was the slightest excitement. I observed, however, that there was a
profound silence for a minute afterwards, which was interrupted by
a jocose remark of the coachman about the delay of our dinner. Soon
after we re-entered the coach, the Colonel referred to the trunk owner
in a contemptuous manner. The Judge replied in a similar tone. “If I
had been in the driver’s place, I should have killed him sure,” said
the Colonel. With great surprise, I ventured to ask for what reason.
“Did not you see the fellow put his hand to his breast when the driver
denied that he had ever taken less than a dollar for bringing a trunk
from Memphis?”

“No, I did not; but what of it?”

“Why, he meant to frighten the driver, of course.”

“You think he had a knife in his breast?”

“Of course he had, sir.”

“But you wouldn’t kill him for that, I suppose?”

“When a man threatens to kill me, you wouldn’t have me wait for him to
do it, would you, sir?”

The roads continued very heavy; some one remarked, “There’s been a
heap of rain lately,” and rain still kept falling. We passed a number
of cotton waggons which had stopped in the road; the cattle had been
turned out and had strayed off into the woods, and the drivers lay
under the tilts asleep on straw.

The Colonel said this sight reminded him of his old camp-meeting days.
“I used to be very fond of going to camp-meetings. I used to go first
for fun, and, oh Lord! haint I had some fun at camp meetings? But after
a while I got a conviction—needn’t laugh, gentlemen. I tell you it was
sober business for me. I’ll never make fun of that. The truth just is,
I am a melancholy case; I thought I was a pious man once, I did—I’m
damn’d if I didn’t. Don’t laugh at what I say, now; I don’t want fun
made of that; I give you my word I experienced religion, and I used
to go to the meetings with as much sincerity and soberness as anybody
could. That was the time I learned to sing—learned to pray too, I did;
could pray right smart. I did think I was a converted man, but of
course I ain’t, and I ’spose ’twarnt the right sort, and I don’t reckon
I shall have another chance. A gentleman has a right to make the most
of this life, when he can’t calculate on anything better than roasting
in the next. Aint that so, Judge? I reckon so. You mustn’t think hard
of me, if I do talk wicked some. Can’t help it.”

I was forced by the stage arrangements to travel night and day. The
Colonel told me that I should be able to get a good supper at a house
where the coach was to stop about midnight—“good honest fried bacon,
and hot Christian corn-bread—nothing like it, to fill a man up and make
him feel righteous. You get a heap better living up in this country
than you can at the St. Charles, for all the fuss they make about it.
It’s lucky you’ll have something better to travel on to-night than them
French friterzeed Dutch flabbergasted hell-fixins: for you’ll have
the——” (another most extraordinary series of imprecations on the road
over which I was to travel).

Before dark all my companions left me, and in their place I had
but one, a young gentleman with whom I soon became very intimately
acquainted. He was seventeen years old, so he said; he looked older;
and the son of a planter in the “Yazoo bottoms.” The last year he had
“follered overseein’” on his father’s plantation, but he was bound for
Tennessee, now, to go to an academy, where he could learn geography.
There was a school near home at which he had studied reading and
writing and ciphering, but he thought a gentleman ought to have some
knowledge of geography. At ten o’clock the next morning the stage-coach
having progressed at the rate of exactly two miles and a half an hour,
for the previous sixteen hours, during which time we had been fasting,
the supper-house, which we should have reached before midnight, was
still ten miles ahead, the driver sulky and refusing to stop until
we reached it. We had been pounded till we ached in every muscle. I
had had no sleep since I left Memphis. We were passing over a hill
country which sometimes appeared to be quite thickly inhabited, yet
mainly still covered with a pine forest, through which the wind moaned
lugubriously.

I had been induced to turn this way in my journey in no slight degree
by reading the following description in a statistical article of De
Bow’s Review:

     “The settling of this region is one among the many remarkable
     events in the history of the rise of the Western States. Fifteen
     years ago it was an Indian wilderness, and now it has reached
     and passed in its population, other portions of the State of
     ten times its age, and this population, too, one of the finest
     in all the West. Great attention has been given to schools and
     education, and here, [at Memphis,] has been located the University
     of Mississippi; so amply endowed by the State, and now just going
     into operation under the auspices of some of the ablest professors
     from the eastern colleges. There is no overgrown wealth among
     them, and yet no squalid poverty; the people being generally
     comfortable, substantial, and independent farmers. Considering its
     climate, soil, wealth, and general character of its inhabitants,
     I should think no more desirable or delightful residence could
     be found than among the hills and sunny valleys of the Chickasaw
     Cession.”[8]

And here among the hills of this Paradise of the South-west, we
were, Yazoo and I—he, savagely hungry, as may be guessed from his
observations upon “the finest people of the West,” among whose cabins
in the pine-wood toiled our stage-coach.

The whole art of driving was directed to the discovery of a passage
for the coach among the trees and through the fields, where there
were fields, adjoining the road—the road itself being impassable.
Occasionally, when the coachman, during the night, found it necessary,
owing to the thickness of the forest on each side, to take to the road,
he would first leave the coach and make a survey with his lantern,
sounding the ruts of the cotton-waggons, and finally making out a
channel by guiding-stakes which he cut from the underwood with a
hatchet, usually carried in the holster. If, after diligent sounding,
he found no passage sufficiently shallow, he would sometimes spend half
an hour in preparing one, bringing rails from the nearest fence, or
cutting brushwood for the purpose. We were but once or twice during the
night called upon to leave the coach, or to assist in road-making, and
my companion frequently expressed his gratitude for this—gratitude not
to the driver but to Providence, who had made a country, as he thought,
so unusually well adapted for stage-coaching. The night before, he
had been on a much worse road, and was half the time, with numerous
other passengers, engaged in bringing rails, and prying the coach out
of sloughs. They had been obliged to keep on the track, because the
water was up over the adjoining country. Where the wooden causeway had
floated off, they had passed through water so deep that it entered
the coach body. With our road of to-day, then, he could only express
satisfaction; not so with the residents upon it. “Look at ’em!” he
would say. “Just look at ’em! What’s the use of such people’s living?
’Pears to me I’d die if I couldn’t live better ’n that. When I get to
be representative, I’m going to have a law made that all such kind of
men shall be took up by the State and sent to the penitentiary, to
make ’em work and earn something to support their families. I pity the
women; I haint nuthin agin them; they work hard enough, I know; but the
men—I know how ’tis. They just hang around groceries and spend all the
money they can get—just go round and live on other people, and play
keerds, and only go home to nights; and the poor women, they hev to
live how they ken.”

“Do you think it’s so? It is strange we see no men—only women and
children.”

“Tell you they’re off, gettin’ a dinner out o’ somebody. Tell you I
know it’s so. It’s the way all these people do. Why there’s one poor
man I know, that lives in a neighbourhood of poor men, down our way,
and he’s right industrious, but he can’t get rich and he never ken,
cause all these other poor men live on him.”

“What do you mean? Do they all drop in about dinner time?”

“No, not all on ’em, but some on ’em every day. And they keep
borrowin’ things of him. He haint spunk enough to insult ’em. If he’d
just move into a rich neighborhood and jest be a little sassy, and
not keer so much about what folks said of him, he’d get rich; never
knew a man that was industrious and sassy in this country that didn’t
get rich, quick, and get niggers to do his work for him. Anybody ken
that’s smart. Thar’s whar they tried to raise some corn. Warn’t no corn
grew thar; that’s sartin. Wonder what they live on? See the stalks.
They never made no corn. Plowed right down the hill! Did you ever see
anything like it? As if this sile warn’t poor enough already. There
now. Just the same. Only look at ’em! ’Pears like they never see a
stage afore. This ain’t the right road, the way they look at us. No,
sartin, they never see a stage. Lord God! see the babies. They never
see a stage afore. No, the stage never went by here afore, I know. This
damn’d driver’s just taken us round this way to show off what he can
do and pass away the time before breakfast. Couldn’t get no breakfast
here if he would stop—less we ate a baby. That’s right! step out where
you ken see her good; prehaps you’ll never see a stage again; better
look now, right sharp. Yes, oh yes, sartin; fetch out all the babies.
Haint you got no more? Well, I should hope not. Now, what is the use
of so many babies? That’s the worst on’t. I’d get married to-morrow if
I wasn’t sure I’d hev babies. I hate babies, can’t bear ’em round me,
and won’t have ’em. I would like to be married. I know several gals
I’d marry if ’twarn’t for that. Well, it’s a fact. Just so. I hate the
squallin’ things. I know I was born a baby, but I couldn’t help it,
could I? I wish I hadn’t been. I hate the squallin’ things. If I had to
hev a baby round me I should kill it.”

“If you had a baby of your own, you’d feel differently about it.”

“That’s what they tell me. I s’pose I should, but I don’t want to feel
differently. I hate ’em. I hate ’em.”

The coach stopped at length. We got out and found ourselves on the
bank of an overflowed brook. A part of the bridge was broken up,
the driver declared it impossible to ford the stream, and said he
should return to the shanty, four miles back, at which we had last
changed horses. We persuaded him to take one of his horses from the
team and let us see if we could not get across. I succeeded in doing
this without difficulty, and turning the horse loose he returned. The
driver, however, was still afraid to try to ford the stream with the
coach and mails, and after trying our best to persuade him, I told him
if he returned he should do it without me, hoping he would be shamed
out of his pusillanimity. Yazoo joined me, but the driver having again
recovered the horse upon which he had forded the stream, turned about
and drove back. We pushed on, and after walking a few miles, came to
a neat new house, with a cluster of old cabins about it. It was much
the most comfortable establishment we had seen during the day. Truly
a “sunny valley” home of northern Mississippi. We entered quietly,
and were received by two women who were spinning in a room with three
outside doors all open, though a fine fire was burning, merely to warm
the room, in a large fire-place, within. Upon our asking if we could
have breakfast prepared for us, one of the women went to the door and
gave orders to a negro, and in a moment after, we saw six or seven
black boys and girls chasing and clubbing a hen round the yard for
our benefit. I regret to add that they did not succeed in making her
tender. At twelve o’clock we breakfasted, and were then accommodated
with a bed, upon which we slept together for several hours. When I
awoke I walked out to look at the premises.

The house was half a dozen rods from the high road, with a square
yard all about it, in one corner of which was a small enclosure for
stock, and a log stable and corn-crib. There were also three negro
cabins; one before the house, and two behind it. The house was a neat
building of logs, boarded over and painted on the outside. On the
inside, the logs were neatly hewn to a plane face, and exposed. One
of the lower rooms contained a bed, and but little other furniture;
the other was the common family apartment, but also was furnished with
a bed. A door opened into another smaller log house in the rear, in
which were two rooms—one of them the family dining-room; the other
the kitchen. Behind this was still another log erection, fifteen feet
square, which was the smoke-house, and in which a great store of
bacon was kept. The negro cabins were small, dilapidated, and dingy;
the walls were not chinked, and there were no windows—which, indeed,
would have been a superfluous luxury, for there were spaces of several
inches between the logs, through which there was unobstructed vision.
The furniture in the cabins was of the simplest and rudest imaginable
kind, two or three beds with dirty clothing upon them, a chest, a
wooden stool or two made with an axe, and some earthenware and cooking
apparatus. Everything within the cabins was coloured black by smoke.
The chimneys of both the house and the cabins were built of splinters
and clay, and on the outer side of the walls. At the door of each cabin
were literally “heaps” of babies and puppies, and behind or beside it
a pig-stye and poultry coop, a ley-tub, and quantities of home-carded
cotton placed upon boards to bleach. Within each of them was a woman or
two, spinning with the old-fashioned great wheel, and in the kitchen
another woman was weaving coarse cotton shirting with the ancient rude
hand-loom. The mistress herself was spinning in the living-room, and
asked, when we had grown acquainted, what women at the North could
find to do, and how they could ever pass the time, when they gave up
spinning and weaving. She made the common every-day clothing for all
her family and her servants. They only bought a few “store-goods”
for their “dress-up” clothes. She kept the negro girls spinning all
through the winter, and at all times when they were not needed in the
field. She supposed they would begin to plant corn now in a few days,
and then the girls would go to work out of doors. I noticed that all
the bed-clothing, the towels, curtains, etc., in the house, were of
homespun.

The proprietor, who had been absent on a fishing excursion, during the
day, returned at dusk. He was a man of the fat, slow-and-easy style,
and proved to be good-natured, talkative, and communicative. He had
bought the tract of land he now occupied, and moved upon it about ten
years before. He had made a large clearing, and could now sell it for
a good deal more than he gave for it. He intended to sell whenever he
could get a good offer, and move on West. It was the best land in this
part of the country, and he had got it well fenced, and put up a nice
house: there were a great many people that like to have these things
done for them in advance—and he thought he should not have to wait
long for a purchaser. He liked himself to be clearing land, and it
was getting too close settled about here to suit him. He did not have
much to do but to hunt and fish, and the game was getting so scarce it
was too much trouble to go after it. He did not think there were so
many cat in the creek as there used to be either, but there were more
gar-fish. When he first bought this land he was not worth much—had to
run in debt—hadn’t but three negroes. Now, he was pretty much out of
debt and owned twenty negroes, seven of them prime field-hands, and he
reckoned I had not seen a better lot anywhere.

During the evening, all the cabins were illuminated by great fires,
and, looking into one of them, I saw a very picturesque family group;
a man sat on the ground making a basket, a woman lounged on a chest in
the chimney corner smoking a pipe, and a boy and two girls sat in a
bed which had been drawn up opposite to her, completing the fireside
circle. They were talking and laughing cheerfully.

The next morning when I turned out I found Yazoo looking with the eye
of a connoisseur at the seven prime field-hands, who at half-past seven
were just starting off with hoes and axes for their day’s work. As I
approached him, he exclaimed with enthusiasm:—

“Aren’t them a right keen lookin’ lot of niggers?”

And our host soon after coming out, he immediately walked up to him,
saying:—

“Why, friend, them yer niggers o’ yourn would be good for seventy bales
of cotton, if you’d move down into our country.”

Their owner was perfectly aware of their value, and said everything
good of them.

“There’s something ruther singlar, too, about my niggers; I don’t know
as I ever see anything like it anywhere else.”

“How so, sir?”

“Well, I reckon it’s my way o’ treatin’ ’em, much as anything. I never
hev no difficulty with ’em. Hen’t licked a nigger in five year, ’cept
maybe sprouting some of the young ones sometimes. Fact, my niggers
never want no lookin’ arter; they jus tek ker o’ themselves. Fact,
they do tek a greater interest in the crops than I do myself. There’s
another thing—I ’spose ’twill surprise you—there ent one of my niggers
but what can read; read good, too—better ’n I can, at any rate.”

“How did they learn?”

“Taught themselves. I b’lieve there was one on ’em that I bought, that
could read, and he taught all the rest. But niggers is mighty apt at
larnin’, a heap more ’n white folks is.”

I said that this was contrary to the generally received opinion.

“Well, now, let me tell you,” he continued; “I had a boy to work, when
I was buildin’, and my boys jus teachin’ him night times and such, he
warn’t here more’n three months, and he larned to read as well as any
man I ever heerd, and I know he didn’t know his letters when he come
here. It didn’t seem to me any white man could have done that; does it
to you, now?”

“How old was he?”

“Warn’t more’n seventeen, I reckon.”

“How do they get books—do you get them for them?”

“Oh no; get ’em for themselves.”

“How?”

“Buy ’em.”

“How do they get the money?”

“Earn it.”

“How?”

“By their own work. I tell you my niggers have got more money ’n I hev.”

“What kind of books do they get?”

“Religious kind a books ginerally—these stories; and some of them will
buy novels, I believe. They won’t let on to that, but I expect they do
it.”

They bought them of peddlers. I inquired about the law to prevent
negroes reading, and asked if it allowed books to be sold to negroes.
He had never heard of any such law—didn’t believe there was any. The
Yazoo man said there was such a law in his country. Negroes never had
anything to read there. I asked our host if his negroes were religious,
as their choice of works would have indicated.

“Yes; all on ’em, I reckon. Don’t s’pose you’ll believe it, but I tell
you it’s a fact; I haint heerd a swear on this place for a twelvemonth.
They keep the Lord’s day, too, right tight, in gineral.”

“Our niggers is mighty wicked down in Yallerbush county,” said my
companion; “they dance.”

“Dance on Sunday?” I asked.

“Oh, no, we don’t allow that.”

“What do they do, then—go to meeting?”

“Why, Sundays they sleep mostly; they’ve been at work hard all the
week, you know, and Sundays they stay in their cabins, and sleep and
talk to each other. There’s so many of ’em together, they don’t want to
go visiting off the place.”

“Are your negroes Baptists or Methodists?” I inquired of our host.

“All Baptists; niggers allers want to be ducked, you know. They ain’t
content to be just titch’d with water; they must be ducked in all over.
There was two niggers jined the Methodists up here last summer, and
they made the minister put ’em into the branch; they wouldn’t jine
’less he’d duck ’em.”

“The Bible says baptize, too,” observed Yazoo.

“Well, they think they must be ducked all under, or ’tain’t no good.”

“Do they go to meeting?”

“Yes, they hev a meeting among themselves.”

“And a preacher?”

“Yes; a nigger preacher.”

“Our niggers is mighty wicked; they dance!” repeated Yazoo.

“Do you consider dancing so very wicked, then?” I asked.

“Well, I don’t account so myself, as I know on, but they do, you
know—the pious people, all kinds, except the ’Piscopers; some o’ them,
they do dance themselves, I believe.”

“Do you dance in your country?”

“Yes.”

“What sort of dances—cotillions and reels?”

“Yes; what do you?”

“Well, we dance cotillions and reels too, and we dance on a plank;
that’s the kind of dancin’ I like best.”

“How is it done?”

“Why, don’t you know that? You stand face to face with your partner on
a plank and keep a dancin’. Put the plank up on two barrel heads, so
it’ll kind o’ spring. At some of our parties—that’s among common kind
o’ people, you know—it’s great fun. They dance as fast as they can,
and the folks all stand round and holler, _‘Keep it up, John!’ ‘Go it,
Nance!’ ‘Don’t give it up so!’ ‘Old Virginny never tire!’ ‘Heel and
toe, ketch a fire!’_ and such kind of observations, and clap and stamp
’em.”

“Do your negroes dance much?”

“Yes, they are mighty fond on’t. Saturday night they dance all night,
and Sunday nights too. Daytime they sleep and rest themselves, and
Sunday nights we let ’em dance and sing if they want. It does ’em good,
you know, to enjoy theirselves.”

“They dance to the banjo, I suppose?”

“Banjos and violins; some of ’em has got violins.”

“I like to hear negroes sing,” said I.

“Niggers is allers good singers nat’rally,” said our host. “I reckon
they got better lungs than white folks, they hev such powerful voices.”

We were sitting at this time on the rail fence at the corner of a
hog-pen and a large half-cleared field. In that part of this field
nearest the house, among the old stumps, twenty or thirty small fruit
trees had been planted. I asked what sorts they were.

“I don’t know—good kinds tho’, I expect; I bought ’em for that at any
rate.”

“Where did you buy them?”

“I bought ’em of a feller that came a peddlin’ round here last fall; he
said I’d find ’em good.”

“What did you pay for them?”

“A bit apiece.”

“That’s very cheap, if they’re good for anything; you are sure they’re
grafted, arn’t you?”

“Only by what he said—he said they was grafted kinds. I’ve got a paper
in the housen he gin me, tells about ’em; leastways, he said it did.
They’s the curosest kinds of trees printed into it you ever heerd on.
But I did not buy none, only the fruit kinds.”

Getting off the fence I began to pick about the roots of one of them
with my pocket-knife. After exposing the trunk for five or six inches
below the surface, I said, “You’ve planted these too deep, if they’re
all like this. You should have the ground dished about it or it won’t
grow.” I tried another, and after picking some minutes without finding
any signs of the “collar,” I asked if they had all been planted so
deeply.

“I don’t know—I told the boys to put ’em in about two feet, and I
expect they did, for they fancied to have apple-trees growin’.”

The catalogue of the tree-peddler, which afterwards came into my
possession, quite justified the opinion my host expressed of the kinds
of trees described in it. The reader shall judge for himself, and I
assure him that the following is a literal transcript of it, omitting
the sections headed “Ancebus new,” “Camelias,” “Rhododendrums,” “Bubbs
Pæony,” “Rosiers,” “Wind’s flowers of the greatest scarcity,” “Bulbous
Roots, and of various kinds of graines.”

     SPECIAL CATALOGUE

     OF THE PLANTS, FLOWERS, SHRUBS IMPORTED BY

     ROUSSET


     MEMBER OF SEVERAL SOCIETIES.

     At Paris (France), boulevard of Hopital, and at Chambery, faubourg
     de Mache.

        MR ROUSSET beg to inform they are arrived in this town, with
        a large assortment of the most rare vegetable plants, either
        flowerd on fruit bearer, onion bulbous, seeds, &c., &c. Price
        very moderate.

     _Their store is situated_


     CHOIX D’ARBRES A FRUIT.


     CHOICE OF FRUIT TREES.


     PEAR TREES.

     1 Good Louisa from Avranche.
     2 Winter’s Perfume.
     3 Saint-John-in-Iron.
     4 Leon-the-Clerc.
     5 Bergamot from England.
     6 Duchess of Angoulême.
     7 Goulu-Morceau.
     8 Tarquin Pear.
     9 Summer’s Good (large) Christian.
     10 Good Turkisk Christian.
     11 Grey (large) Beurré.
     12 Royal Beurré from England.


     1 Bon-Chrétien d’été.
     2 —— d’hiver.
     3 —— de Pâque.
     4 Doyenné blanc.
     5 Duchesse d’Angora-New.
     6 Belle Angevine, fondante.
     7 Crassane d’hiver.
     8 Louise d’Orleans, sucré.
     9 Double fleur hâtif.
     10 Angélique de Tour.


     1 Borgamotte de Milan, Gros.
     2 —— d’Aiençon, très-gros.
     3 Beurrê gris d’hiver.
     4 —— Amanlis.
     5 —— d’Hardenpont, précoce.
     6 Fortunè, fondant.
     7 Josephine, chair fine.
     8 Martin-sec, sucrè.
     9 Messire, gris.
     10 Muscat d’etè.
     11 Doyenné d’automne.
     12 —— d’hiver, sucré.
     13 Virgouleuse fondonte.
     14 Bezy-Lamotte.
     15 Gros-Blanquet.


     APPLES.

     1 Renetto of Spain.
     2 —— Green.
     3 Apple Coin.
     4 —— Friette.
     5 Calville, white, winter’s fruit.
     6 —— red, autumn’s fruit.
     7 —— red, winter’s fruit.
     8 Violet or of the Four-Taste.
     9 Renette from England, or Gold-Apple.
     10 Golded Renette, a yellow backward plant.
     11 White—of a great perfume.
     12 Renette, red, winter’s fruit.


     1 Renette, yellow, heavy fruit.
     2 —— grey, very delicate.
     3 —— Princess noble.
     4 Apple d’Api.
     5 —— d’Eve.
     6 Winter’s Postophe.
     7 Plein gney fenouillet.
     8 Renette franc.
     9 —— of St. Laurent.
     10 Sammers Numbourg.
     11 Belle du Havre.
     12 Belle Hollandaise.


     1 Violet Apple or of the 4 taste; the fruit may be preserved 2
         years.
     2 Princess Renette, of a gold yellow, spotted with red of a
         delicious taste.
     3 White Renette from Canada, of which the skin is lite scales
         strange by its size.
     4 The Cythère Apple.
     5 The Caynoite Apple.
     6 Apple Trees with double flowers. Blooms twice a year,
         Camélia’s flowers like.
     106 others kinds of Apples of the newest choice.


     APRICOTS.

     1 The Ladie’s Apricots.
     2 The Peack Apricots.
     3 The Royal Apricots.
     4 The Gros Muscg Apricots.
     5 The Pourret Apricots.
     6 Portugal Apricots.
     7 Apricats monstruous from America, of a gold yellow, of an
         enormous size, and of the pine’s apple taste.

     PEACH TREES.

     1 Peach Grosse Mignonne.
     2   ——     Bello Beauty.
     3   ——     Godess.
     4   ——     Beauty of Paris.
     5   ——     From Naples! said without stone.
     6 Brugnon, musc taste.
     7 Admirable; Belle of Vitry.
     8 The Large Royal.
     9 Monstruous Pavie.
     10 The Cardinal, very forward.
     11 Good Workman.
     12 Lètitia Bonaparte.
     13 The Prince’s Peach, melting in the mouth.
     14 The Prince’s Peach from Africa, with large white fruit,
          weighing pound and half each; nearly, new kind.
     50 others new kinds of Peach Trees.


     PLUM TREES.

     1 Plum Lamorte.
     2 Surpasse Monsieur.
     3 Damas with musc taste.
     4 Royale of Tonrs.
     5 Green Gage, of a violet colour.
     6 Large Mirabelle.
     7 Green gage, golded.
     8 Imperial, of a violet colour.
     9 Empress, of a white colour.
     10 Ste-Catherine, zellow, suger taste like.


     CHERRY TREES.

     1 Cherry from the North.
     2 —— Royal, gives from 18 to 20 cherries weighing one pound,
            4 differentes kinds.
     3 Cherry Reina Hortense.
     4 —— Montmorency.
     5 —— with thort stalk (Gros-Gobet).
     6 —— Le Mercier.
     7 —— Four for a pound.
     8 Cherry Beauty of Choicy.
     9 —— The English.
     10 Cherry-Duck.
     11 —— Creole with bunches.
     12 —— Bigarrot or monster of new Mézel.


     CURRANT TREES.

     1 Currant Three with red bunches (grapes).
     2 —— with white bunches.
     3 Gooseberries of 1st choice (Raspberries) six kinds of alégery.
     4 New kind of currants, of which the grapes are as big as the
         wine grapes.


     GRAPES WINES.

     1 Chasselas of Fontainebleau, with large gold grains.
     2 Chasselas, black very good.
     3 —— red, of musc teste.
     4 Verdal, the sweetest and finest fruit for desert.
     5 White Muscadine grape, or of Frontignan.
     6 Muscat of Alexandrie, musc taste.
     7 Cornichon, white, sweet sugar like, very good.
     8 Tokay, red and white.
     9 Verjus from Bordeaux, large yellow fruit.
     10 St. Peter large and fine fruit.
     11 Red Muscadine Graper.
     12 Raisin of Malaga.
     13 The Celestial Wine Tree, or the amphibious grain, weighing two
          ounces, the grain of a red and violet colour.


     NEW STRAWBERRY PLANTS.

     1  The Strawberry Cremont.
     2  —— the Queen.
     3  —— monster, new kind.
     4  —— from Chili.
     5  Caperon of a raspberry taste.
     6  Scarlat from Venose, very forward plant.
     7  Prince Albert, fruit of very great beauty.
     8  Grinston colalant, very large.
     9  Rose-Berry, big fruit and of a long form.
     10 Bath cherry, very good.
     11 The Big Chinese Strawberry, weighing 16 to a pound, produce
          fruit all year round, of the pine apple’s taste.
     12 Vilmoth full.


     NEW FIG TREES OF A MONSTRUOUS SIZE.

     1 Diodena white, of a large size.
     2 Duchess of Maroc, green fruit.
     3 Donne-à-Dieu, blue fruit.
     4 La Sanspareille, yellow fruit.

     _The Perpetual Rapsberry Tree_, imported from Indies
     producing a fruit large as an egg, taste delicious 3 kinds,
     red, violet and white.

     _The Rapsberry Tree from Fastolff_, red fruit, very good of
     an extraordinary size, very hearty forward plant.

     _Cherry Currant Tree_, with large bunches, it has a great
     production. Its numerous and long bunches cover entirely the
     old wood and looks like grapes; the fruit of a cherry pink
     colour is very large and of the best quality.

     _Asparagus from Africa_, new kinds, good to eat the same year
     of their planting (seeds of two years). 1000 varieties of
     annual and perpetual flower’s grains also of kitchen garden
     grains.

     PAULNOVIA INPERIALIS. Magnificent hardy plant from 12 to
     15 yards of higth: its leave come to the size of 75 to 80
     centimeter and its fine and larg flowers of a fine blue,
     gives when the spring comes, a soft and agréable perfume.

     _Besides these plants the amateur will find at_ M. ROUSSET,
     _stores, a great number of other Plants and Fruit Trees of
     which would be to long to describe._


     NOTICE.

     The admirable and strange plant called _Trompette du
     Jugement_ (The Judgment Trompette) of that name having not
     yet found its classification.

     This marvellous plant was send to us from China by the
     cleuer and courageous botanist collector M. Fortune, from
     l’Himalaya, near summet of the Chamalari Macon.

     This splendid plant deserves the first rank among all kinds
     of plant which the botanical science has produce till now in
     spite of all the new discoveries.

     This bulbous plant gives several stems on the same subject.
     It grows to the height of 6 feet. It is furnished with
     flowers from bottom to top. The bud looks by his from like
     a big cannon ball of a heavenly blue. The center is of an
     aurora yellewish colour. The vegetation of that plant is to
     fouitfull that when it is near to blossom it gives a great
     heat when tassing it in hand and when the bud opens it
     produces a naite Similar to a pistole shot. Immediately the
     vegetation takes fire and burns like alcohol about an hour
     and a half. The flowers succeeding one to the other gives the
     satisfaction of having flowers during 7 or 8 months.

     The most intense cold can not hurt this plant and can be
     culvivated in pots, in appartments or gpeen houses.

     Wa call the public attention to this plant as a great
     curiosity.

     Havre—Printed by F. HUE, rue de Paris, 89.

       *       *       *       *       *

“But come,” said the farmer, “go in; take a drink. Breakfast’ll be
ready right smart.”

“I don’t want to drink before breakfast, thank you.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not accustomed to it, and I don’t find it’s wholesome.”

Not wholesome to drink before breakfast! That was “a new kink” to our
jolly host, and troubled him as much as a new “ism” would an old fogy.
Not wholesome? He had always reckoned it warn’t very wholesome not
to drink before breakfast. He did not expect I had seen a great many
healthier men than he was, had I? and he always took a drink before
breakfast. If a man just kept himself well strung up, without ever
stretching himself right tight, he didn’t reckon damps or heat would
ever do him much harm. He had never had a sick day since he came to
this place, and he reckoned that this was owin’ considerable to the
good rye whisky he took. It was a healthy trac’ of land, though, he
believed, a mighty healthy trac’; everything seemed to thrive here. We
must see a nigger-gal that he was raisin’; she was just coming five,
and would pull up nigh upon a hundred weight.

“Two year ago,” he continued, after taking his dram, as we sat by the
fire in the north room, “when I had a carpenter here to finish off this
house, I told one of my boys he must come in and help him. I reckoned
he would larn quick, if he was a mind to. So he come in, and a week
arterwards he fitted the plank and laid this floor, and now you just
look at it; I don’t believe any man could do it better. That was two
year ago, and now he’s as good a carpenter as you ever see. I bought
him some tools after the carpenter left, and he can do anything with
’em—make a table or a chest of drawers or anything. I think niggers is
somehow nat’rally ingenious; more so ’n white folks. They is wonderful
apt to any kind of slight.”

I took out my pocket-map, and while studying it, asked Yazoo some
questions about the route East. Not having yet studied geography, as
he observed, he could not answer. Our host inquired where I was going,
that way. I said I should go on to Carolina.

“Expect you’re going to buy a rice-farm, in the Carolinies, aint you?
and I reckon you’re up here speckylating arter nigger stock, aint you
now?”

“Well,” said I, “I wouldn’t mind getting that fat girl of yours, if we
can made a trade. How much a pound will you sell her at?”

“We don’t sell niggers by the pound in this country.”

“Well, how much by the lump?”

“Well, I don’t know; reckon I don’t keer about sellin’ her just yet.”

After breakfast, I inquired about the management of the farm. He said
that he purchased negroes, as he was able, from time to time. He grew
rich by the improved saleable value of his land, arising in part from
their labour, and from their natural increase and improvement, for he
bought only such as would be likely to increase in value on his hands.
He had been obliged to spend but little money, being able to live and
provide most of the food and clothing for his family and his people, by
the production of his farm. He made a little cotton, which he had to
send some distance to be ginned and baled, and then waggoned it seventy
miles to a market; also raised some wheat, which he turned into flour
at a neighbouring mill, and sent to the same market. This transfer
engaged much of the winter labour of his man-slaves.

I said that I supposed the Memphis and Charleston railroad, as it
progressed east, would shorten the distance to which it would be
necessary to draw his cotton, and so be of much service to him. He did
not know that. He did not know as he should ever use it. He expected
they would charge pretty high for carrying cotton, and his niggers
hadn’t any thing else to do. It did not really cost him anything now to
send it to Memphis, because he had to board the niggers and the cattle
anyhow, and they did not want much more on the road than they did at
home.

He made a large crop of corn, which, however, was mainly consumed by
his own force, and he killed annually about one hundred and fifty
hogs, the bacon of which was all consumed in his own family and by
his people, or sold to passing travellers. In the fall, a great many
drovers and slave-dealers passed over the road with their stock, and
they frequently camped against this house, so as to buy corn and bacon
of him. This they cooked themselves.

There were sometimes two hundred negroes brought along together, going
South. He didn’t always have bacon to spare for them, though he killed
one hundred and fifty swine. They were generally bad characters, and
had been sold for fault by their owners. Some of the slave-dealers were
high-minded, honourable men, he thought; “high-toned gentlemen, as ever
he saw, some of ’em, was.”

Niggers were great eaters, and wanted more meat than white folks; and
he always gave his as much as they wanted, and more too. The negro
cook always got dinner for them, and took what she liked for it; his
wife didn’t know much about it. She got as much as she liked, and he
guessed she didn’t spare it. When the field-hands were anywhere within
a reasonable distance, they always came up to the house to get their
dinner. If they were going to work a great way off, they would carry
their dinner with them. They did as they liked about it. When they
hadn’t taken their dinner, the cook called them at twelve o’clock with
a conch. They ate in the kitchen, and he had the same dinner that they
did, right out of the same frying-pan; it was all the same, only they
ate in the kitchen, and he ate in the room we were in, with the door
open between them.

I brought up the subject of the cost of labour, North and South. He
had no apprehension that there would ever be any want of labourers at
the South, and could not understand that the ruling price indicated
the state of the demand for them. He thought negroes would increase
more rapidly than the need for their labour. “Niggers,” said he, “breed
faster than white folks, a ’mazin’ sight, you know; they begin younger.”

“How young do they begin?”

“Sometimes at fourteen, sometimes at sixteen, and sometimes at
eighteen.”

“Do you let them marry so young as that?” I inquired. He laughed, and
said, “They don’t very often wait to be married.”

“When they marry, do they have a minister to marry them?”

“Yes, generally one of their own preachers.”

“Do they with you?” I inquired of Yazoo.

“Yes, sometimes they hev a white minister, and sometimes a black one,
and if there arn’t neither handy, they get some of the pious ones
to marry ’em. But then very often they only just come and ask our
consent, and then go ahead, without any more ceremony. They just call
themselves married. But most niggers likes a ceremony, you know, and
they generally make out to hev one somehow. They don’t very often get
married for good, though, without trying each other, as they say, for
two or three weeks, to see how they are going to like each other.”

I afterwards asked how far it was to the post-office. It was six miles.
“One of my boys,” said our host, “always gets the paper every week. He
goes to visit his wife, and passes by the post-office every Sunday. Our
paper hain’t come, though, now, for three weeks. The mail don’t come
very regular.” All of his negroes, who had wives off the place, left
an hour before sunset on Saturday evening. One of them, who had a wife
twenty miles away, left at twelve o’clock Saturday, and got back at
twelve o’clock Monday.

“We had a nigger once,” said Yazoo, “that had a wife fifteen miles
away, and he used to do so; but he did some rascality once, and he was
afraid to go again. He told us his wife was so far off, ’twas too much
trouble to go there, and he believed he’d give her up. We was glad of
it. He was a darned rascally nigger—allers getting into scrapes. One
time we sent him to mill, and he went round into town and sold some of
the meal. The storekeeper wouldn’t pay him for’t, ’cause he hadn’t got
an order. The next time we were in town, the storekeeper just showed us
the bag of meal; said he reckoned ’twas stole; so when we got home we
just tied him up to the tree and licked him. He’s a right smart nigger;
rascally niggers allers is smart. I’d rather have a rascally nigger
than any other—they’s so smart allers. He is about the best nigger
we’ve got.”

“I have heard,” said I, “that religious negroes were generally the
most valuable. I have been told that a third more would be given for a
man if he were religious.” “Well, I never heerd of it before,” said he.
Our host thought there was no difference in the market value of sinners
and saints.

“Only,” observed Yazoo, “the rascalier a nigger is, the better he’ll
work. Now that yer nigger I was tellin’ you on, he’s worth more’n any
other nigger we’ve got. He’s a yaller nigger.”

I asked their opinion as to the comparative value of black and yellow
negroes. Our host had two bright mulatto boys among his—didn’t think
there was much difference, “but allers reckoned yellow fellows was the
best a little; they worked smarter. He would rather have them.” Yazoo
would not; he “didn’t think but what they’d work as well; but he didn’t
fancy yellow negroes ’round him; would rather have real black ones.”

I asked our host if he had no foreman or driver for his negroes, or if
he gave his directions to one of them in particular for all the rest.
He did not. They all did just as they pleased, and arranged the work
among themselves. They never needed driving.

“If I ever notice one of ’em getting a little slack, I just talk to
him; tell him we must get out of the grass, and I want to hev him stir
himself a little more, and then, maybe, I slip a dollar into his hand,
and when he gits into the field he’ll go ahead, and the rest seeing
him, won’t let themselves be distanced by him. My niggers never want
no lookin’ arter. They tek more interest in the crop than I do myself,
every one of ’em.”

Religious, instructed, and seeking further enlightenment; industrious,
energetic, and self directing; well fed, respected, and trusted by
their master, and this master an illiterate, indolent, and careless
man! A very different state of things, this, from what I saw on a
certain great cotton planter’s estate, where a profit of $100,000 was
made in a single year, but where five hundred negroes were constantly
kept under the whip, where religion was only a pow-wow or cloak for
immorality, and where the negro was considered to be of an inferior
race, especially designed by Providence to be kept in the position he
there occupied! A very different thing; and strongly suggesting what
a very different thing this negro servitude might be made in general,
were the ruling disposition of the South more just and sensible.

About half-past eleven, a stage coach, which had come earlier in the
morning from the East, and had gone on as far as the brook, returned,
having had our luggage transferred to it from the one we had left on
the other side. In the transfer a portion of mine was omitted and
never recovered. Up to this time our host had not paid the smallest
attention to any work his men were doing, or even looked to see if
they had fed the cattle, but had lounged about, sitting upon a fence,
chewing tobacco, and talking with us, evidently very glad to have
somebody to converse with. He went in once again, after a drink; showed
us the bacon he had in his smoke-house, and told a good many stories
of his experience in life, about a white man’s “dying hard” in the
neighbourhood, and of a tree falling on a team with which one of his
negroes was ploughing cotton, “which was lucky”—that is, that it did
not kill the negro—and a good deal about “hunting” when he was younger
and lighter.

Still absurdly influenced by an old idea which I had brought to the
South with me, I waited, after the coach came in sight, for Yazoo to
put the question, which he presently did, boldly enough.

“Well; reckon we’re goin’ now. What’s the damage?”

“Well; reckon seventy-five cents’ll be right.”



CHAPTER III.

THE INTERIOR COTTON DISTRICTS—CENTRAL MISSISSIPPI, ALABAMA, ETC.


_Central Mississippi, May 31st._—Yesterday was a raw, cold day, wind
north-east, like a dry north-east storm at home. Fortunately I came
to the pleasantest house and household I had seen for some time. The
proprietor was a native of Maryland, and had travelled in the North;
a devout Methodist, and somewhat educated. He first came South, as I
understood, for the benefit of his health, his lungs being weak.

His first dwelling, a rude log cabin, was still standing, and was
occupied by some of his slaves. The new house, a cottage, consisting of
four rooms and a hall, stood in a small grove of oaks; the family were
quiet, kind, and sensible.

When I arrived, the oldest boy was at work, holding a plough in the
cotton-field, but he left it and came at once, with confident and
affable courtesy, to entertain me.

My host had been in Texas, and after exploring it quite thoroughly,
concluded that he much preferred to remain where he was. He found no
part of that country where good land, timber, and a healthy climate
were combined: in the West he did not like the vicinage of the Germans
and Mexicans; moreover, he didn’t “fancy” a prairie county. Here, in
favourable years, he got a bale of cotton to the acre. Not so much now
as formerly. Still, he said, the soil would be good enough for him
here, for many years to come.

I went five times to the stable without being able to find a servant
there. I was always told that “the boy” would feed my horse, and take
good care of him, when he came; and so at length I had to go to bed,
trusting to this assurance. I went out just before breakfast next
morning, and found the horse with only ten _dry_ cobs in the manger. I
searched for the boy; could not find him, but was told that my horse
had been fed. I said, “I wish to have him fed more—as much as he will
eat.” Very well, the boy should give him more. When I went out after
breakfast the boy was leading out the horse. I asked if he had given
him corn this morning.

“Oh yes, sir.”

“How many ears did you give him?”

“Ten or fifteen—or sixteen, sir; he eats very hearty.”

I went into the stable and saw that he had not been fed; there were
the same ten cobs (dry) in the manger. I doubted, indeed, from their
appearance, if the boy had fed him at all the night before. I fed
him with leaves myself, but could not get into the corn crib. The
proprietor was, I do not doubt, perfectly honest, but the negro had
probably stolen the corn for his own hogs and fowls.

The next day I rode more than thirty miles, having secured a good feed
of corn for the horse at midday. At nightfall I was much fatigued, but
had as yet failed to get lodging. It began to rain, and grew dark, and
I kept the road with difficulty. About nine o’clock I came to a large,
comfortable house.

An old lady sat in the verandah, of whom I asked if I could be
accommodated for the night: “Reckon so,” she replied: then after a
few moments’ reflection, without rising from her chair she shouted,
“Gal!—gal!” Presently a girl came.

“Missis?”

“Call Tom!”

The girl went off, while I remained, waiting for a more definite
answer. At length she returned: “Tom ain’t there, missis.”

“Who is there?”

“Old Pete,”

“Well, tell him to come and take this gentleman’s horse.”

Pete came, and I went with him to the gate where I had fastened my
horse. Here he called for some younger slave to come and take him down
to “the pen,” while he took off the saddle.

All this time it was raining, but any rapidity of movement was out
of the question. Pete continued shouting. “Why not lead the horse to
the pen yourself?” I asked. “I must take care of de saddle and tings,
massa; tote ’em to de house whar dey’ll be safe. Dese niggers is so
treacherous, can’t leave nothin’ roun’ but dey’ll hook suthing off of
it.”

Next morning, at dawn of day, I saw honest Pete come into the room
where I was in bed and go stealthily to his young master’s clothes,
probably mistaking them for mine. I moved and he dropped them, and
slunk out to the next room, where he went loudly to making a fire. I
managed to see the horse well fed night and morning.

There were three pretty young women in this house, of good manners and
well dressed, except for the abundance of rings and jewelry which they
displayed at breakfast. One of them surprised me not a little at the
table. I had been offered, in succession, fried ham and eggs, sweet
potatoes, apple-pie, corn-bread, and molasses; this last article I
declined, and passed it to the young lady opposite, looking to see how
it was to be used. She had, on a breakfast plate, fried ham and eggs
and apple-pie, and poured molasses between them.

  *       *       *       *       *

_June 1st._—I stopped last evening at the house of a man who was
called “Doctor” by his family, but who was, to judge from his language,
very illiterate. His son, by whom I was first received, followed me to
the stable. He had ordered a negro child to lead my horse, but as I saw
the little fellow couldn’t hold him I went myself. He had no fodder
(corn-leaves), and proposed to give the horse some shucks (corn-husks)
dipped in salt water, and, as it was now too late to go further, I
assented. Belshazzar licked them greedily, but would not eat them, and
they seemed to destroy his appetite for corn, for late in the evening,
having groped my way into the stable, I found seven small ears of corn,
almost untasted, in the manger. I got the young man to come out and
give him more.

The “Doctor” returned from “a hunt,” as he said, with no game but a
turtle, which he had taken from a “trot line”—a line, with hooks at
intervals, stretched across the river.

The house was large, and in a good-sized parlour or common room stood
a handsome centre table, on which were a few books and papers, mostly
Baptist publications. I sat here alone in the evening, straining my
eyes to read a wretchedly printed newspaper, till I was offered a bed.
I was very tired and sleepy, having been ill two nights before. The bed
was apparently clean, and I gladly embraced it.

My host, holding a candle for me to undress by (there was no
candlestick in the house), called to a boy on the outside to fasten
the doors, which he did by setting articles of furniture against them.
When I had got into bed he went himself into an inner room, the door
of which he closed and fastened in the same manner. No sooner was the
light withdrawn than I was attacked by bugs. I was determined, if
possible, not to be kept awake by them, but they soon conquered me.
I never suffered such incessant and merciless persecution from them
before. In half an hour I was nearly frantic, and leaped from bed.
But what to do? There was no use in making a disturbance about it;
doubtless every other bed and resting place in the house was full of
them. I shook out my day clothes carefully and put them on, and then
pushing away the barricade, opened the door and went into the parlour.
At first I thought that I would arrange the chairs in a row and sleep
on them; but this I found impracticable, for the seats of the chairs
were too narrow, and moreover of deerskin, which was sure to be full
of fleas if not of bugs. Stiff and sore and weak, I groaningly lay
down where the light of the moon came through a broken window, for
bugs feed but little except in darkness, and with my saddle-bags for
a pillow, again essayed to sleep. Fleas! instantly. There was nothing
else to be done; I was too tired to sit up, even if that would have
effectually removed the annoyance. Finally I dozed—not long, I think,
for I was suddenly awakened by a large insect dropping upon my eye.
I struck it off, and at the moment it stung me. My eyelid swelled
immediately, and grew painful, but at length I slept in spite of it.
I was once more awakened by a large beetle which fell on me from the
window; once more I got asleep, till finally at four o’clock I awoke
with that feverish dryness of the eyes which indicates a determination
to sleep no more. It was daylight, and I was stiff and shivering; the
inflammation and pain of the sting in my eyelid had in a great degree
subsided. I pushed back the bolt of the outside door-lock, and went to
the stable. The negroes were already at work in the field. Belshazzar
had had a bad night too: that was evident. The floor of the stall,
being of earth, had been trodden into two hollows at each end, leaving
a small rough hillock in the centre. Bad as it was, however, it was
the best in the stable; only one in four of the stalls having a manger
that was not broken down. A wee little black girl and boy were cleaning
their master’s horses—mine they were afraid of. They had managed to
put some fresh corn in his manger, however, and as he refused to eat,
I took a currycomb and brush, and in the next two hours gave him the
first thorough grooming he had enjoyed since I owned him. I could not
detect the reason of his loss of appetite. I had been advised by an
old southern traveller to examine the corn when my horse refused to
eat—if corn were high I might find that it had been greased. From the
actions of the horse, then and subsequently, I suspect some trick of
this kind was here practised upon me. When I returned to the house and
asked to wash, water was given me in a vessel which, though I doubted
the right of my host to a medical diploma, certainly smelt strongly of
the shop—it was such as is used by apothecaries in mixing drugs. The
title of Doctor is often popularly given at the South to druggists and
venders of popular medicines; very probably he had been one, and had
now retired to enjoy the respectability of a planter.

  *       *       *       *       *

_June 2nd._—I met a ragged old negro, of whom I asked the way, and at
what house within twelve miles I had better stop. He advised me to go
to one more than twelve miles distant.

“I suppose,” said I, “I can stop at any house along the road here,
can’t I? They’ll all take in travellers?”

“Yes, sir, if you’ll take rough fare, such as travellers has to,
sometimes. They’re all damn’d rascals along dis road, for ten or twelve
miles, and you’ll get nothin’ but rough fare. But I say, massa, rough
fare’s good enough for dis world; ain’t it, massa? Dis world ain’t
nothin; dis is hell, dis is, I calls it; hell to what’s a comin’ arter,
ha! ha! Ef you’s prepared? you says. I don’t look much ’s if I was
prepared, does I? nor talk like it, nuther. De Lord he cum to me in my
cabin in de night time, in de year ’45.”

“What?”

“De Lord! massa, de bressed Lord! He cum to me in de night time, in
de year ’45, and he says to me, says he, ‘I’ll spare you yet five year
longer, old boy!’ So when ’50 cum round I thought my time had cum,
sure; but as I didn’t die, I reckon de Lord has ’cepted of me, and I
’specs I shall be saved, dough I don’t look much like it, ha! ha! ho!
ho! de Lord am my rock, and he shall not perwail over me. I will lie
down in green pastures and take up my bed in hell, yet will not His
mercy circumwent me. Got some baccy, master?”

A little after sunset I came to an unusually promising plantation, the
dwelling being within a large enclosure, in which there was a well-kept
southern sward shaded by fine trees. The house, of the usual form, was
painted white, and the large number of neat out-buildings seemed to
indicate opulence, and, I thought, unusual good taste in its owner.
A lad of sixteen received me, and said I could stay; I might fasten
my horse, and when the negroes came up he would have him taken care
of. When I had done so, and had brought the saddle to the verandah,
he offered me a chair, and at once commenced a conversation in the
character of entertainer. Nothing in his tone or manner would have
indicated that he was not the father of the family, and proprietor of
the establishment. No prince royal could have had more assured and
nonchalant dignity. Yet a northern stable-boy, or apprentice, of his
age, would seldom be found as ignorant.

“Where do you live, sir, when you are at home?” he asked.

“At New York.”

“New York is a big place, sir, I expect?”

“Yes, very big.”

“Big as New Orleans, is it, sir?”

“Yes, much bigger.”

“Bigger ’n New Orleans? It must be a bully city.”

“Yes; the largest in America.”

“Sickly there now, sir?”

“No, not now; it is sometimes.”

“Like New Orleans, I suppose?”

“No, never so bad as New Orleans sometimes is.”

“Right healthy place, I expect, sir?”

“Yes, I believe so, for a place of its size.”

“What diseases do you have there, sir?”

“All sorts of diseases—not so much fever, however, as you have
hereabouts.”

“Measles and hooping-cough, sometimes, I reckon?”

“Yes, ’most all the time, I dare say.”

“All the time! People must die there right smart. Some is dyin’ ’most
every day, I expect, sir?”

“More than a hundred every day, I suppose.”

“Gosh! a hundred every day! Almighty sickly place ’t must be?”

“It is such a large place, you see—seven hundred thousand people.”

“Seven hundred thousand—expect that’s a heap of people, ain’t it?”

His father, a portly, well-dressed man, soon came in, and learning that
I had been in Mexico, said, “I suppose there’s a heap of Americans
flocking in and settling up that country along on the line, ain’t
there, sir?”

“No, sir, very few. I saw none, in fact—only a few Irishmen and
Frenchmen, who called themselves Americans. Those were the only
foreigners I saw, except negroes.”

“Niggers! Where were they from?”

“They were runaways from Texas.”

“But their masters go there and get them again, don’t they?”

“No, sir, they can’t.”

“Why not?”

“The Mexicans are friendly to the niggers, and protect them.”

“But why not go to the Government?”

“The Government considers them as free, and will not let them be taken
back.”

“But that’s stealing, sir. Why don’t our Government make them deliver
them up? What good is the Government to us if it don’t preserve the
rights of property, sir? Niggers are property, ain’t they? and if a
man steals my property, ain’t the Government bound to get it for me?
Niggers are property, sir, the same as horses and cattle, and nobody’s
any more right to help a nigger that’s run away than he has to steal a
horse.”

He spoke very angrily, and was excited. Perhaps he was indirectly
addressing me, as a Northern man, on the general subject of
fugitive slaves. I said that it was necessary to have special
treaty stipulations about such matters. The Mexicans lost their
_peons_—bounden servants; they ran away to our side, but the United
States Government never took any measures to restore them, nor did the
Mexicans ask it. “But,” he answered, in a tone of indignation, “those
are not niggers, are they? They are white people, sir, just as white as
the Mexicans themselves, and just as much right to be free.”

My horse stood in the yard till quite dark, the negroes not coming
in from the cotton-field. I twice proposed to take him to the stable,
but he said, “No: the niggers would come up soon and attend to him.”
Just as we were called to supper, the negroes began to make their
appearance, getting over a fence with their hoes, and the master called
to one to put the horse in the stable, and to “take good care of him.”
“I want him to have all the corn he’ll eat,” said I. “Yes, sir; feed
him well; do you hear there?”

The house was meagrely furnished within, not nearly as well as the most
common New England farm-house. I saw no books and no decorations. The
interior wood-work was unpainted.

At supper there were three negro girls in attendance—two children of
twelve or fourteen years of age, and an older one, but in a few moments
they all disappeared. The mistress called aloud several times, and at
length the oldest came, bringing in hot biscuit.

“Where’s Suke and Bet?”

“In the kitchen, missus.”

“Tell them both to come to me, right off.”

A few minutes afterwards, one of the girls slunk in and stood behind
me, as far as possible from her mistress. Presently, however, she was
discovered.

“You Bet, you there? Come here! come here to me! close to me! (_Slap,
slap, slap._) Now, why don’t you stay in here? (_Slap, slap, slap_, on
the side of the head.) I know! you want to be out in the kitchen with
them Indians! (_Slap, slap, slap._) Now see if you can stay here.”
(_Slap!_) The other girl didn’t come at all, and was forgotten.

As soon as supper was over my hostess exclaimed, “Now, you Bet, stop
crying there, and do you go right straight home; mind you run every
step of the way, and if you stop one minute in the kitchen you’d
better look out. Begone!” During the time I was in the house she was
incessantly scolding the servants, in a manner very disagreeable for me
to hear, though they seemed to regard it very little.

The Indians, I learned, lived some miles away, and were hired to hoe
cotton. I inquired their wages. “Well, it costs me about four bits
(fifty cents) a day,” (including food, probably). They worked well for
a few days at a time; were better at picking than at hoeing. “They
don’t pick so much in a day as niggers, but do it better.” The women
said they were good for nothing, and her husband had no business to
plant so much cotton that he couldn’t ’tend it with his own slave hands.

While at table a young man, very dirty and sweaty, with a ragged
shirt and no coat on, came in to supper. He was surly and rude in his
actions, and did not speak a word; he left the table before I had
finished, and lighting a pipe, laid himself at full length on the floor
of the room to smoke. This was the overseer.

Immediately after supper the master told me that he was in the habit of
going to bed early, and he would show me where I was to sleep. He did
so, and left me without a candle. It was dark, and I did not know the
way to the stables, so I soon went to bed. On a feather bed I did not
enjoy much rest, and when I at last awoke and dressed, breakfast was
just ready. I said I would go first to look after my horse, and did so,
the planter following me. I found him standing in a miserable stall, in
a sorry state; he had not been cleaned, and there were no cobs or other
indications of his having been fed at all since he had been there. I
said to my host—

“He has not been fed, sir!”

“I wonder! hain’t he? Well, I’ll have him fed. I s’pose the overseer
forgot him.”

But, instead of going to the crib and feeding him at once himself, he
returned to the house and blew a horn for a negro; when after a long
time one came in sight from the cotton-fields, he called to him to go
to the overseer for the key of the corn-crib and feed the gentleman’s
horse, and asked me now to come to breakfast. The overseer joined
us as a supper; nothing was said to him about my horse, and he was
perfectly silent, and conducted himself like an angry or sulky man in
all his actions. As before, when he had finished his meal, without
waiting for others to leave the table, he lighted a pipe and lay down
to rest on the floor. I went to the stable and found my horse had been
supplied with seven poor ears of corn only. I came back to ask for
more, but could find neither master nor overseer. While I was packing
my saddle-bags preparatory to leaving, I heard my host call a negro to
“clean that gentleman’s horse and bring him here.” As it was late, I
did not interpose. While I was putting on the bridle, he took off the
musquito tent attached to the saddle and examined it. I explained why I
carried it.

“You won’t want it any more,” said he; “no musquitoes of any account
where you are going now; you’d better give it to me, sir; I should
like to use it when I go a-fishing; musquitoes are powerful bad in the
swamp.” After some further solicitation, as I seldom used it, I gave
it to him. Almost immediately afterwards he charged me a dollar for my
entertainment, which I paid, notwithstanding the value of the tent was
several times that amount. Hospitality to travellers is so entirely a
matter of business with the common planters.

I passed the hoe-gang at work in the cotton-field, the overseer
lounging among them carrying a whip; there were ten or twelve of them;
not one looked up at me. Within ten minutes I passed five who were
ploughing, with no overseer or driver in sight, and each stopped his
plough to gaze at me.

  *       *       *       *       *

_June 3rd._—Yesterday I met a well-dressed man upon the road, and
inquired of him if he could recommend me to a comfortable place to pass
the night.

“Yes, I can,” said he; “you stop at John Watson’s. He is a real good
fellow, and his wife is a nice, tidy woman; he’s got a good house, and
you’ll be as well taken care of there as in any place I know.”

“What I am most concerned about is a clean bed,” said I.

“Well, you are safe for that, there.”

So distinct a recommendation was unusual, and when I reached the house
he had described to me, though it was not yet dark, I stopped to
solicit entertainment.

In the gallery sat a fine, stalwart man, and a woman, who in size and
figure matched him well. Some ruddy, fat children were playing on the
steps. The man wore a full beard, which is very uncommon in these
parts. I rode to a horse-block near the gallery, and asked if I could
be accommodated for the night. “Oh, yes, you can stay here if you can
get along without anything to eat; we don’t have anything to eat but
once a week.” “You look as if it agreed with you, I reckon I’ll try
it for one night.” “Alight, sir, alight. Why, you came from Texas,
didn’t you? Your rig looks like it,” he said, as I dismounted. “Yes,
I’ve just crossed Texas, all the way from the Rio Grande.” “Have you
though? Well, I’ll be right glad to hear something of that country.” He
threw my saddle and bags across the rail of the gallery, and we walked
together to the stable.

“I hear that there are a great many Germans in the western part of
Texas,” he said presently.

“There are a great many; west of the Guadaloupe, more Germans than
Americans born.”

“Have they got many slaves?”

“No.”

“Well, won’t they break off and make a free State down there, by and
by?”

“I should think it not impossible that they might.”

“I wish to God they would; I would like right well to go and settle
there if it was free from slavery. You see Kansas and all the Free
States are too far north for me; I was raised in Alabama, and I don’t
want to move into a colder climate; but I would like to go into a
country where they had not got this curse of slavery.”

He said this not knowing that I was a Northern man. Greatly surprised,
I asked, “What are your objections to slavery, sir?”

“Objections! The first’s here” (striking his breast); “I never could
bring myself to like it. Well, sir, I know slavery is wrong, and God
’ll put an end to it. It’s bound to come to an end, and when the end
does come, there’ll be woe in the land. And, instead of preparing for
it, and trying to make it as light as possible, we are doing nothing
but make it worse and worse. That’s the way it appears to me, and
I’d rather get out of these parts before it comes. Then I’ve another
objection to it. I don’t like to have slaves about me. Now, I tell a
nigger to go and feed your horse; I never know if he’s done it unless
I go and see; and if he didn’t know I would go and see, and would whip
him if I found he hadn’t fed him, would he feed him? He’d let him
starve. I’ve got as good niggers as anybody, but I never can depend on
them; they will lie, and they will steal, and take advantage of me in
every way they dare. Of course they will, if they are slaves. But lying
and stealing are not the worst of it. I’ve got a family of children,
and I don’t like to have such degraded beings round my house while
they are growing up. I know what the consequences are to children, of
growing up among slaves.”

I here told him that I was a Northern man, and asked if he could
safely utter such sentiments among the people of this district, who
bore the reputation of being among the most extreme and fanatical
devotees of slavery. “I’ve been told a hundred times I should be killed
if I were not more prudent in expressing my opinions, but, when it
comes to killing, I’m as good as the next man, and they know it. I
never came the worst out of a fight yet since I was a boy. I never am
afraid to speak what I think to anybody. I don’t think I ever shall be.”

“Are there many persons here who have as bad an opinion of slavery as
you have?”

“I reckon you never saw a conscientious man who had been brought up
among slaves who did not think of it pretty much as I do—did you?”

“Yes, I think I have, a good many.”

“Ah, self-interest warps men’s minds wonderfully, but I don’t believe
there are many who don’t think so, sometimes—it’s impossible, I know,
that they don’t.”

“Were there any others in this neighbourhood,” I asked, “who avowedly
hated slavery?” He replied that there were a good many mechanics, all
the mechanics he knew, who felt slavery to be a great curse to them,
and who wanted to see it brought to an end in some way. The competition
in which they were constantly made to feel themselves engaged with
slave-labour was degrading to them, and they felt it to be so. He knew
a poor, hard-working man who was lately offered the services of three
negroes for six years each if he would let them learn his trade, but he
refused the proposal with indignation, saying he would starve before
he helped a slave to become a mechanic.[9] There was a good deal of
talk now among them about getting laws passed to prevent the owners of
slaves from having them taught trades, and to prohibit slave-mechanics
from being hired out. He could go out to-morrow, he supposed, and in
the course of a day get two hundred signatures to a paper alleging
that slavery was a curse to the people of Mississippi, and praying
the Legislature to take measures to relieve them of it as soon as
practicable. (The county contains three times as many slaves as whites.)

He considered a coercive government of the negroes by the whites,
forcing them to labour systematically, and restraining them from a
reckless destruction of life and property, at present to be necessary.
Of course, he did not think it wrong to hold slaves, and the profits of
their labour were not more than enough to pay a man for looking after
them—not if he did his duty to them. What was wrong, was making slavery
so much worse than was necessary. Negroes would improve very rapidly,
if they were allowed, in any considerable measure, the ordinary
incitements to improvement. He knew hosts of negroes who showed
extraordinary talents, considering their opportunities: there were a
great many in this part of the country who could read and write, and
calculate mentally as well as the general run of white men who had been
to schools. There were Colonel ——’s negroes, some fifty of them; he did
not suppose there were any fifty more contented people in the world;
they were not driven hard, and work was stopped three times a day for
meals; they had plenty to eat, and good clothes; and through the whole
year they had from Friday night to Monday morning to do what they liked
with themselves. Saturdays, the men generally worked in their patches
(private gardens), and the women washed and mended clothes. Sundays,
they nearly all went to a Sabbath School which the mistress taught,
and to meeting, but they were not obliged to go; they could come and
go as they pleased all Saturday and Sunday; they were not looked after
at all. Only on Monday morning, if there should any one be missing,
or any one should come to the field with ragged or dirty clothes, he
would be whipped. He had often noticed how much more intelligent and
sprightly these negroes all were than the common run; a great many
of them had books and could read and write; and on Sundays they were
smartly dressed, some of them better than he or his wife ever thought
of dressing. These things were purchased with the money they made out
of their patches, working Saturdays.

There were two other large plantations near him, in both of which
the negroes were turned out to work at half-past three every week-day
morning—I might hear the bell ring for them—and frequently they were
not stopped till nine o’clock at night, Saturday nights the same as
any other. One of them belonged to a very religious lady, and on
Sunday mornings at half-past nine she had her bell rung for Sunday
School, and after Sunday School they had a meeting, and after dinner
another religious service. Every negro on the plantation was obliged
to attend all these exercises, and if they were not dressed clean they
were whipped. They were never allowed to go off the plantation, and if
they were caught speaking to a negro from any other place, they were
whipped. They could all of them repeat the catechism, he believed, but
they were the dullest, and laziest, and most sorrowful looking negroes
he ever saw.

As a general rule, the condition of the slaves, as regards their
material comfort, had greatly improved within twenty years. He did not
know that it had in other respects. It would not be a bit safer to turn
them free to shift for themselves, than it would have been twenty years
ago. Of this he was quite confident. Perhaps they were a little more
intelligent, knew more, but they were not as capable of self-guidance,
not as much accustomed to work and contrive for themselves, as they
used to be, when they were not fed and clothed nearly as well as now.

Beyond the excessive labour required of them on some plantations, he
did not think slaves were often treated with unnecessary cruelty. It
was necessary to use the lash occasionally. Slaves never really felt
under any moral obligation to obey their masters. Faithful service was
preached to them as a Christian duty, and they pretended to acknowledge
it, but the fact was that they were obedient just so far as they saw
that they must be to avoid punishment; and punishment was necessary,
now and then, to maintain their faith in their master’s power. He had
seventeen slaves, and he did not suppose that there had been a hundred
strokes of the whip on his place for a year past.

He asked if there were many Americans in Texas who were opposed to
slavery, and if they were free to express themselves. I said that the
wealthy Americans there were all slaveholders themselves; that their
influence all went to encourage the use of slave-labour, and render
labour by whites disreputable. “But are there not a good many northern
men there?” he asked. The northern men, I replied, were chiefly
merchants or speculators, who had but one idea, which was to make money
as fast as they could; and nearly all the little money there was in
that country was in the hands of the largest slaveholders.

If that was the way of things there, he said, there could not be
much chance of its becoming a Free State. I thought the chances were
against it, but if the Germans continued to flock into the country, it
would rapidly acquire all the characteristic features of a free-labour
community, including an abundance and variety of skilled labour, a home
market for a variety of crops, denser settlements, and more numerous
social, educational, and commercial conveniences. There would soon be
a large body of small proprietors, not so wealthy that the stimulus
to personal and active industry would have been lost, but yet able
to indulge in a good many luxuries, to found churches, schools, and
railroads, and to attract thither tradesmen, mechanics, professional
men, and artists. Moreover, the labourers who were not landholders
would be intimately blended with them in all their interests; the
two classes not living dissociated from each other, as was the case
generally at the South, but engaged in a constant fulfilment of
reciprocal obligations. I told him that if such a character of society
could once be firmly and extensively established before the country was
partitioned out into these little independent negro kingdoms, which had
existed from the beginning in every other part of the South, I did not
think any laws would be necessary to prevent slavery. It might be a
slave State, but it would be a free people.

On coming from my room in the morning, my host met me with a hearty
grasp of the hand. “I have slept very little with thinking of what you
told me about western Texas. I think I shall have to go there. If we
could get rid of slavery in this region, I believe we would soon be the
most prosperous people in the world. What a disadvantage it must be to
have your ground all frozen up, and to be obliged to fodder your cattle
five months in the year, as you do at the North. I don’t see how you
live. I think I should like to buy a small farm near some town where I
could send my children to school—a farm that I could take care of with
one or two hired men. One thing I wanted to ask you, are the Germans
learning English at all?” “Oh, yes; they teach the children English
in their schools.” “And have they good schools?” “Wherever they have
settled at all closely they have. At New Braunfels they employ American
as well as German teachers, and instruction can be had in the classics,
natural history, and the higher mathematics.” “Upon my word, I think
I must go there,” he replied. (Since then, as I hear, an educational
institution of a high character, has been established by German
influence in San Antonio, teachers in which are from Harvard.)

When I left he mounted a horse and rode on with me some miles, saying
he did not often find an intelligent man who liked to converse with
him on the question of slavery. It seemed to him there was an epidemic
insanity on the subject. It is unnecessary to state his views at
length. They were precisely those which used to be common among all
respectable men at the South.

As we rode an old negro met and greeted us warmly. My companion
hereupon observed that he had never uttered his sentiments in the
presence of a slave, but in some way all the slaves in the country had,
he thought, been informed what they were, for they all looked to him as
their special friend. When they got into trouble, they would often come
to him for advice or assistance. This morning before I was up, a negro
came to him from some miles distant, who had been working for a white
man on Sundays till he owed him three dollars, which, now that the
negro wanted it, he said he could not pay. He had given the negro the
three dollars, for he thought he could manage to get it from the white
man.

He confirmed an impression I had begun to get of the purely dramatic
character of what passed for religion with most of the slaves. One of
his slaves was a preacher, and a favourite among them. He sometimes
went to plantations twenty miles away—even further—on a Sunday, to
preach a funeral sermon, making journeys of fifty miles a day on foot.
After the sermon, a hat would be passed round, and he sometimes brought
home as much as ten dollars. He was a notable pedestrian; and once when
he had committed some abominable crime for which he knew he would have
to be punished, and had run away, he (Mr. Watson) rode after him almost
immediately, often got in sight of him, but did not overtake him until
the second day, when starting early in the morning he overhauled him
crossing a broad, smooth field. When the runaway parson saw that he
could not escape, he jumped up into a tree and called out to him, with
a cheerful voice, “I gin ye a good run dis time, didn’t I, massa?” He
was the most rascally negro, the worst liar, thief, and adulterer on
his place. Indeed, when he was preaching, he always made a strong point
of his own sinfulness, and would weep and bellow about it like a bull
of Bashan, till he got a whole camp meeting into convulsions.

  *       *       *       *       *

The night after leaving Mr. Watson’s I was kindly received by a
tradesman, who took me, after closing his shop, to his mother’s house,
a log cabin, but more comfortable than many more pretentious residences
at which I passed a night on this journey. For the first time in many
months tea was offered me. It was coarse Bohea, sweetened with honey,
which was stirred into the tea as it boiled in a kettle over the fire,
by the old lady herself, whose especial luxury it seemed to be. She
asked me if folks ever drank tea at the North, and when I spoke of
green tea said she had never heard of that kind of tea before. They
owned a number of slaves, but the young man looked after my horse
himself. There was a good assortment of books and newspapers at this
house, and the people were quite intelligent and very amiable.

The next day, I passed a number of small Indian farms, very badly
cultivated—the corn nearly concealed by weeds. The soil became poorer
than before, and the cabins of poor people more frequent. I counted
about ten plantations, or negro-cultivated farms, in twenty miles.
A planter, at whose house I called after sunset, said it was not
convenient for him to accommodate me, and I was obliged to ride until
it was quite dark. The next house at which I arrived was one of the
commonest sort of cabins. I had passed twenty like it during the
day, and I thought I would take the opportunity to get an interior
knowledge of them. The fact that a horse and waggon were kept, and that
a considerable area of land in the rear of the cabin was planted with
cotton, showed that the family were by no means of the lowest class,
yet, as they were not able even to hire a slave, they may be considered
to represent very favourably, I believe, the condition of the poor
whites of the plantation districts. The whites of the county, I
observe, by the census, are three to one of the slaves; in the nearest
adjoining county, the proportion is reversed; and within a few miles
the soil was richer, and large plantations occurred.

It was raining, and nearly nine o’clock. The door of the cabin was
open, and I rode up and conversed with the occupant as he stood within.
He said that he was not in the habit of taking in travellers, and his
wife was about sick, but if I was a mind to put up with common fare, he
didn’t care. Grateful, I dismounted and took the seat he had vacated by
the fire, while he led away my horse to an open shed in the rear—his
own horse ranging at large, when not in use, during the summer.

The house was all comprised in a single room, twenty-eight by
twenty-five feet in area, and open to the roof above. There was a large
fireplace at one end and a door on each side—no windows at all. Two
bedsteads, a spinning-wheel, a packing-case, which served as a bureau,
a cupboard, made of rough hewn slabs, two or three deer-skin seated
chairs, a Connecticut clock, and a large poster of Jayne’s patent
medicines, constituted all the visible furniture, either useful or
ornamental in purpose. A little girl, immediately, without having had
any directions to do so, got a frying-pan and a chunk of bacon from
the cupboard, and cutting slices from the latter, set it frying for my
supper. The woman of the house sat sulkily in a chair tilted back and
leaning against the logs, spitting occasionally at the fire, but took
no notice of me, barely nodding when I saluted her. A baby lay crying
on the floor. I quieted it and amused it with my watch till the little
girl, having made “coffee” and put a piece of corn-bread on the table
with the bacon, took charge of it.

I hoped the woman was not very ill.

“Got the headache right bad,” she answered. “Have the headache a heap,
I do. Knew I should have it to-night. Been cuttin’ brush in the cotton
this arternoon. Knew’t would bring on my headache. Told him so when I
begun.”

As soon as I had finished my supper and fed Jude, the little girl put
the fragments and the dishes in the cupboard, shoved the table into a
corner, and dragged a quantity of quilts from one of the bedsteads,
which she spread upon the floor, and presently crawled among them out
of sight for the night. The woman picked up the child—which, though
still a suckling, she said was twenty-two months old—and nursed it,
retaking her old position. The man sat with me by the fire, his back
towards her. The baby having fallen asleep was laid away somewhere, and
the woman dragged off another lot of quilts from the beds, spreading
them upon the floor. Then taking a deep tin pan, she filled it with
alternate layers of corn-cobs and hot embers from the fire. This she
placed upon a large block, which was evidently used habitually for the
purpose, in the centre of the cabin. A furious smoke arose from it,
and we soon began to cough. “Most _too_ much smoke,” observed the man.
“Hope ’twill drive out all the gnats, then,” replied the woman. (There
is a very minute flying insect here, the bite of which is excessively
sharp.)

The woman suddenly dropped off her outer garment and stepped from
the midst of its folds, in her petticoat; then, taking the baby from
the place where she had deposited it, lay down and covered herself
with the quilts upon the floor. The man told me that I could take
the bed which remained on one of the bedsteads, and kicking off his
shoes only, rolled himself into a blanket by the side of his wife. I
ventured to take off my cravat and stockings, as well as my boots, but
almost immediately put my stockings on again, drawing their tops over
my pantaloons. The advantage of this arrangement was that, although
my face, eyes, ears, neck, and hands, were immediately attacked, the
vermin did not reach my legs for two or three hours. Just after the
clock struck two, I distinctly heard the man and the woman, and the
girl and the dog scratching, and the horse out in the shed stamping
and gnawing himself. Soon afterward the man exclaimed, “Good God
Almighty—mighty! mighty! mighty!” and jumping up pulled off one of
his stockings, shook it, scratched his foot vehemently, put on the
stocking, and lay down again with a groan. The two doors were open, and
through the logs and the openings in the roof, I saw the clouds divide
and the moon and stars reveal themselves. The woman, after having been
nearly smothered by the smoke from the pan which she had originally
placed close to her own pillow, rose and placed it on the sill of the
windward door, where it burned feebly and smoked lustily, like an altar
to the Lares, all night. Fortunately the cabin was so open that it gave
us little annoyance, while it seemed to answer the purpose of keeping
all flying insects at a distance.

When, on rising in the morning, I said that I would like to wash my
face, water was given me for the purpose in an earthen pie-dish. Just
as breakfast, which was of exactly the same materials as my supper, was
ready, rain began to fall, presently in such a smart shower as to put
the fire out and compel us to move the table under the least leaky part
of the roof.

At breakfast occurred the following conversation:—

“Are there many niggers in New York?”

“Very few.”

“How do you get your work done?”

“There are many Irish and German people constantly coming there who are
glad to get work to do.”

“Oh, and you have them for slaves?”

“They want money and are willing to work for it. A great many
American-born work for wages, too.”

“What do you have to pay?”

“Ten or twelve dollars a month.”

“There was a heap of Irishmen to work on the railroad; they was paid a
dollar a day; there was a good many Americans, too, but mostly they had
little carts and mules, and hauled dirt and sich like. They was paid
twenty-five or thirty dollars a month and found.”

“What did they find them?”

“Oh, blanket and shoes, I expect; they put up kind o’ tents like for
’em to sleep in altogether.”

“What food did they find them?”

“Oh, common food; bacon and meal.”

“What do they generally give the niggers on the plantations here?”

“A peck of meal and three pound of bacon is what they call ’lowance, in
general, I believe. It takes a heap o’ meat on a big plantation. I was
on one of William R. King’s plantations over in Alabamy, where there
was about fifty niggers, one Sunday last summer, and I see ’em weighin’
outen the meat. Tell you, it took a powerful heap on it. They had an
old nigger to weigh it out, and he warn’t no ways partickler about the
weight. He just took and chopped it off, middlins, in chunks, and he’d
throw them into the scales, and if a piece weighed a pound or two over
he wouldn’t mind it; he never took none back. Ain’t niggers all-fired
sassy at the North?”

“No, not particularly.”

“Ain’t they all free, there? I hearn so.”

“Yes.”

“Well, how do they get along when they’s free?”

“I never have seen a great many, to know their circumstances very well.
Right about where I live they seem to me to live quite comfortably;
more so than the niggers on these big plantations do, I should think.”

“Oh, they have a mighty hard time on the big plantations. I’d ruther be
dead than to be a nigger on one of these big plantations.”

“Why, I thought they were pretty well taken care of on them.”

The man and his wife both looked at me as if surprised, and smiled.

“Why, they are well fed, are they not?”

“Oh, but they work em so hard. My God, sir, in pickin’ time on these
plantations they start ’em to work ’fore light, and they don’t give ’em
time to eat.”

“I supposed they generally gave them an hour or two at noon.”

“No, sir; they just carry a piece of bread and meat in their pockets
and they eat it when they can, standin’ up. They have a hard life on
’t, that’s a fact. I reckon you can get along about as well withouten
slaves as with ’em, can’t you, in New York?”

“In New York there is not nearly so large a proportion of very rich
men as here. There are very few people who farm over three hundred
acres, and the greater number—nineteen out of twenty, I suppose—work
themselves with the hands they employ. Yes, I think it’s better than it
is here, for all concerned, a great deal. Folks that can’t afford to
buy niggers get along a great deal better in the Free States, I think;
and I guess that those who could afford to have niggers get along
better without them.”

“I no doubt that’s so. I wish there warn’t no niggers here. They are a
great cuss to this country, I expect. But ’twouldn’t do to free ’em;
that wouldn’t do nohow!”

“Are there many people here who think slavery a curse to the country?”

“Oh, yes, a great many. I reckon the majority would be right glad if we
could get rid of the niggers. But it wouldn’t never do to free ’em and
leave ’em here. I don’t know anybody, hardly, in favour of that. Make
’em free and leave ’em here and they’d steal everything we made. Nobody
couldn’t live here then.”

These views of slavery seem to be universal among people of this
class. They were repeated to me at least a dozen times.

“Where I used to live [Alabama], I remember when I was a boy—must ha’
been about twenty years ago—folks was dreadful frightened about the
niggers. I remember they built pens in the woods where they could hide,
and Christmas time they went and got into the pens, ’fraid the niggers
was risin’.”

“I remember the same time where we was in South Carolina,” said his
wife; “we had all our things put up in bags, so we could tote ’em, if
we heerd they was comin’ our way.”

They did not suppose the niggers ever thought of rising now, but could
give no better reason for not supposing so than that “everybody said
there warn’t no danger on ’t now.”

Hereabouts the plantations were generally small, ten to twenty negroes
on each; sometimes thirty or forty. Where he used to live they were
big ones—forty or fifty, sometimes a hundred on each. He had lived
here ten years. I could not make out why he had not accumulated
wealth, so small a family and such an inexpensive style of living as
he had. He generally planted twenty to thirty acres, he said; this
year he had sixteen in cotton and about ten, he thought, in corn.
Decently cultivated, this planting should have produced him five
hundred dollars’ worth of cotton, besides supplying him with bread
and bacon—his chief expense, apparently. I suggested that this was a
very large planting for his little family; he would need some help in
picking time. He ought to have some now, he said; grass and bushes were
all overgrowing him; he had to work just like a nigger; this durnation
rain would just make the weeds jump, and he didn’t expect he should
have any cotton at all. There warn’t much use in a man’s trying to get
along by himself; every thing seemed to set in agin him. He’d been
trying to hire somebody, but he couldn’t, and his wife was a sickly
kind of a woman.

His wife reckoned he might hire some help if he’d look round sharp.

My horse and dog were as well cared for as possible, and a “snack” of
bacon and corn-bread was offered me for noon, which has been unusual
in Mississippi. When I asked what I should pay, the man hesitated and
said he reckoned what I had had, wasn’t worth much of anything; he was
sorry he could not have accommodated me better. I offered him a dollar,
for which he thanked me warmly. It is the first instance of hesitation
in charging for a lodging which I have met with from a stranger at the
South.

  *       *       *       *       *

_Northern Alabama, June 15th._—I have to-day reached a more distinctly
hilly country—somewhat rocky and rugged, but with inviting dells. The
soil is sandy and less frequently fertile; cotton-fields are seen only
at long intervals, the crops on the small proportion of cultivated land
being chiefly corn and oats. I notice also that white men are more
commonly at work in the fields than negroes, and this as well in the
cultivation of cotton as of corn.

The larger number of the dwellings are rude log huts, of only one
room, and that unwholesomely crowded. I saw in and about one of
them, not more than fifteen feet square, five grown persons, and as
many children. Occasionally, however, the monotony of these huts is
agreeably varied by neat, white, frame houses. At one such, I dined
to-day, and was comfortably entertained. The owner held a number of
slaves, but made no cotton. He owned a saw mill, was the postmaster of
the neighbourhood, and had been in the Legislature.

I asked him why the capital had been changed from Tuscaloosa to
Montgomery. He did not know. “Because Montgomery is more central and
easy of access, probably,” I suggested. “No, I don’t think that had
anything to do with it.” “Is Tuscaloosa an unhealthy place?” “No, sir;
healthier than Montgomery, I reckon.” “Was it then simply because the
people of the southern districts were stronger, and used their power
to make the capital more convenient of access to themselves?” “Well,
no, I don’t think that was it, exactly. The fact is, sir, the people
here are not like you northern people; they don’t reason out everything
so. They are fond of change, and they got tired of Tuscaloosa; the
Montgomery folks wanted it there and offered to pay for moving it, so
they let ’em have it; ’t was just for a change.” “If there really was
no better reason, was it not rather wasteful to give up all the public
buildings at Tuscaloosa?” “Oh, the Montgomery people wanted it so bad
they promised to pay for building a new State House; so it did not cost
anything.”

Quite on a par with the economics of southern commercial conventions.

I passed the night at the second framed house that I saw during the
day, stopping early in order to avail myself of its promise of comfort.
It was attractively situated on a hilltop, with a peach orchard
near it. The proprietor owned a dozen slaves, and “made cotton,” he
said, “with other crops.” He had some of his neighbours at tea and
at breakfast; sociable, kindly people, satisfied with themselves and
their circumstances, which I judged from their conversation had been
recently improving. One coming in, remarked that he had discharged a
white labourer whom he had employed for some time past; the others
congratulated him on being “shet” of him; all seemed to have noticed
him as a bad, lazy man; he had often been seen lounging in the field,
rapping the negroes with his hoe if they didn’t work to suit him. “He
was about the meanest white man I ever see,” said a woman; “he was a
heap meaner ’n niggers. I reckon niggers would come somewhere between
white folks and such as he.” “The first thing I tell a man,” said
another, “when I hire him, is, ‘if there’s any whippin’ to be done on
this place I want to do it myself.’ If I saw a man rappin’ my niggers
with a hoe-handle, as I see him, durned if I wouldn’t rap him—the lazy
whelp.”

One of the negroes complimented my horse. “Dar’s a heap of genus in dat
yar hoss’s head!” The proprietor looked after the feeding himself.

These people were extremely kind; inquiring with the simplest good
feeling about my domestic relations and the purpose of my journey. When
I left, one of them walked a quarter of a mile to make sure that I
went upon the right road. The charge for entertainment, though it was
unusually good, was a quarter of a dollar less than I have paid before,
which I mention, not as Mr. De Bow would suppose,[10] out of gratitude
for the moderation, but as an indication of the habits of the people,
showing, as it may, either closer calculation, or that the district
grows its own supplies, and can furnish food cheaper than those in
which attention is more exclusively given to cotton.

_June 17th._—The country continues hilly, and is well populated by
farmers, living in log huts, while every mile or two, on the more level
and fertile land, there is a larger farm, with ten or twenty negroes at
work. A few whites are usually working near them, in the same field,
generally ploughing while the negroes hoe.

About noon, my attention was attracted towards a person upon a ledge,
a little above the road, who was throwing up earth and stone with a
shovel. I stopped to see what the purpose of this work might be, and
perceived that the shoveller was a woman, who, presently discovering
me, stopped and called to others behind her, and immediately a stout
girl and two younger children, with a man, came to the edge and
looked at me. The woman was bareheaded, and otherwise half-naked, as
perhaps needed to be, for her work would have been thought hard by
our stoutest labourers, and it was the hottest weather of the summer,
in the latitude of Charleston, and on a hill-side in the full face of
the noon sun. I pushed my horse up the hill until I reached them, when
another man appeared, and in answer to my inquiries told me that they
were getting out iron ore. One was picking in a vein, having excavated
a short adit; the other man picked looser ore exterior to the vein.
The women and children shovelled out the ore and piled it on kilns of
timber, where they roasted it to make it crumble. It was then carted to
a forge, and they were paid for it by the load. They were all clothed
very meanly and scantily. The women worked, so far as I could see, as
hard as the men. The children, too, even to the youngest—a boy of eight
or ten—were carrying large lumps of ore, and heaving them into the
kiln, and shovelling the finer into a screen to separate the earth from
it.

Immediately after leaving them I found a good spot for nooning. I
roped my horse out to graze, and spread my blanket in a deep shade.
I noticed that the noise of their work had ceased, and about fifteen
minutes afterwards, Jude suddenly barking, I saw one of the men peering
at me through the trees, several rods distant. I called to him to come
up. He approached rather slowly and timidly, examined the rope with
which my horse was fastened, eyed me vigilantly, and at length asked
if I was resting myself. I replied that I was; and he said that he did
not know but I might be sick, and had come to see me. I thanked him,
and offered him a seat upon my blanket, which he declined. Presently he
took up a newspaper that I had been reading, looked at it for a moment,
then he told me he couldn’t read. “Folks don’t care much for edication
round here; it would be better for ’em, I expect, if they did.” He
began then to question me closely about my circumstances—where I came
from, whither I was going, etc.

When his curiosity was partially appeased he suddenly laughed in a
silly manner, and said that the people he had been working with had
watched me after I left them; they saw me ride up the hill and stop,
ride on again, and finally take off my saddle, turn my horse loose and
tote my saddle away, and they were much frightened, thinking I must
be crazy at least. When he started to come toward me they told him he
wouldn’t dare to go to me, but he saw how it was, well enough—I was
just resting myself.

“If I should run down hill now,” said he, “they’d start right off and
wouldn’t stop for ten mile, reckoning you was arter me. That would be
fun; oh, we have some good fun here sometimes with these green folks.
There’s an amazin’ ignorant set round here.”

I asked if they were foreigners.

“Oh, no; they are common, no account people; they used to live over the
hill, here; they come right nigh starvin’ thar, I expect.”

They had not been able to get any work to do, and had been “powerful
poor,” until he got them to come here. They had taken an old cabin,
worked with him, and were doing right well now. He didn’t let them work
in the vein—he kept that for himself—but they worked all around, and
some days they made a dollar and a half—the man, woman, and children
together. They had one other girl, but she had to stay at home to take
care of the baby and keep cattle and hogs out of their “gardien.” He
had known the woman when she was a girl; “she was always a good one to
work. She’d got a voice like a bull, and she was as smart as a wild
cat; but the man warn’t no account.”

He had himself followed this business (mining) since he was a young
man, and could earn three dollars a day by it if he tried; he had a
large family and owned a small farm: never laid up anything, always
kept himself a little in debt at the store.

He asked if I had not found the people “more friendly like” up in this
country to what they were down below, and assured me that I would find
them grow more friendly as I went further North, so at least he had
heard, and he knew where he first came from (Tennessee) the people were
more friendly than they were here. “The richer a man is,” he continued,
pursuing a natural association of ideas, “and the more niggers he’s
got, the poorer he seems to live. If you want to fare well in this
country you stop to poor folks’ housen; they try to enjoy what they’ve
got, while they ken, but these yer big planters they don’ care for
nothing but to save. Now, I never calculate to save anything; I tell my
wife I work hard, and I mean to enjoy what I earn as fast as it comes.”

Sometimes he “took up bee-huntin’ for a spell,” and made money by
collecting wild honey. He described his manner of finding the hives and
securing the honey, and, with a hushed voice, told me a “secret,” which
was, that if you carried three leaves, each of a different tree (?) in
your hand, there was never a bee would dare to sting you.

I asked about his children. He had one grown-up son, who was doing very
well; he was hired by the gentleman who owned the forge, to cart ore.
He had nothing to do but to drive a team; he didn’t have to load, and
he had a nigger to take care of the horses when his day’s teaming was
done.

His wages were seven dollars a month, and board for himself and wife.
They ate at the same table with the gentleman, and had good living,
beside having something out of the store, “tobacco and so on—tobacco
for both on ’em, and two people uses a good deal of tobacco you know;
so that’s pretty good wages—seven dollars a month besides their keep
and tobacco.” Irishmen, he informed me, had been employed occasionally
at the forge. “They do well at first, only they is apt to get into
fights all the time; but after they’ve been here a year or two, they
get to feel so independent and keerless-like, you can’t get along with
’em.” He remained about half an hour, and not till he returned did I
hear again the noise of picking and shovelling, and cutting timber.

At the forges, I was told, slave labour is mainly employed—the slaves
being owned by the proprietors of the forges.

I spent that night at a large inn in a village. In the morning as I sat
waiting in my room, a boy opened the door. Without looking up I asked,
“Well?”

“I didn’t say nuthin’, sar,” with a great grin.

“What are you waiting there for?” “Please, massa, I b’leve yours owin’
me suthin’, sar.” “Owing you something? What do you mean?” “For drying
yer clothes for yer, sar, last night.” I had ordered him immediately
after tea to go up stairs and get my clothes, which had been drenched
in a shower, and hang them by the kitchen fire, that they might be
dry if I should wish to leave early in the morning. When I went to my
bedroom at nine o’clock I found the clothes where I had left them. I
went down and reported it to the landlord, who directly sent the boy
for them. In the morning, when I got them again I found they were not
dry except where they were burned. I told him to be gone; but with the
door half open, he stood putting in his head, bowing and grinning.
“Please, sar, massa sent me out of an errand, and I was afeard you
would be gone before I got back; dat’s the reason why I mention it,
sar; dat’s all, sar; I hope you’ll skuse me, sar.”

During the afternoon I rode on through a valley, narrow and apparently
fertile, but the crops indifferent. The general social characteristics
were the same that I met with yesterday.

At night I stopped at a large house having an unusual number of negro
cabins and stables about it. The proprietor, a hearty old farmer,
boasted much of his pack of hounds, saying they had pulled down five
deer before he had had a shot at them. He was much interested to hear
about Texas, the Indians and the game. He reckoned there was “a heap of
big varmint out thar.”

His crop of cotton did not average two bales to the hand, and corn not
twenty bushels to the acre.

He amused me much with a humorous account of an oyster supper to which
he had been invited in town, and his attempts to eat the “nasty things”
without appearing disconcerted before the ladies.

An old negro took my horse when I arrived, and half an hour afterward,
came to me and asked if I wanted to see him fed. As we walked toward
the stables, he told me that he always took care not to forget
gentlemen’s hosses, and to treat them well; “then,” he said, bowing and
with emphasis, “they looks out and don’t forget to treat me well.”

The same negro was called to serve me as a candlestick at bedtime. He
held the candle till I got into bed. As he retired I closed my eyes,
but directly afterward, perceiving the light return, I opened them.
Uncle Abram was bending over me, holding the candle, grinning with
his toothless gums, winking and shaking his head in a most mysterious
manner.

“Hush! massa,” he whispered. “You hain’t got something to drink, in
dem saddle-bags, has you, sar?”

The farmer told me something about “nigger dogs” they didn’t use
foxhounds, but bloodhounds—not pure, he thought, but a cross of the
Spanish bloodhound with the common hounds, or curs. There were many
men, he said, in the country below here, who made a business of
nigger-hunting, and they had their horses trained, as well as the dogs,
to go over any common fence, or if they couldn’t leap it, to break it
down. Dogs were trained, when pups, to follow a nigger—not allowed to
catch one, however, unless they were quite young, so that they couldn’t
hurt him much, and they were always taught to hate a negro, never being
permitted to see one except to be put in chase of him. He believed that
only two of a pack were kept kenneled all the time—these were old,
keen ones, who led the rest when they were out; they were always kept
coupled together with a chain, except when trailing. He had seen a
pack of thirteen who would follow a trail two days and a half old, if
rain had not fallen in the mean time. When it rained immediately after
a negro got off, they had to scour the country where they supposed he
might be, till they scented him.

When hard pushed, a negro always took to a tree; sometimes, however,
they would catch him in an open field. When this was the case the
hunter called off the dogs as soon as he could, unless the negro
fought—“that generally makes ’em mad (the hunters), and they’ll let ’em
tear him a spell. The owners don’t mind having them kind o’ niggers
tore a good deal; runaways ain’t much account nohow, and it makes the
rest more afraid to run away, when they see how they are sarved.”
If they caught the runaway within two or three days, they got from
$10 to $20; if it took a longer time, they were paid more than that;
sometimes $200. They asked their own price; if an owner should think it
exorbitant, he supposed, he said in reply to an inquiry, they’d turn
the nigger loose, order him to make off, and tell his master to catch
his own niggers.

  *       *       *       *       *

_Sunday._—I rode on, during the cool of the morning, about eight miles,
and stopped for the day, at a house pleasantly situated by a small
stream, among wooded hills. During the forenoon, seven men and three
women, with their children, gathered at the house. All of them, I
concluded, were non-slaveholders, as was our host himself; though, as
one told me, “with his five boys he makes a heap more crop than Mrs.
——, who’s got forty niggers.” “How is that?” “Well, she’s a woman, and
she can’t make the niggers work; she won’t have a overseer, and niggers
won’t work, you know, unless there’s somebody to drive ’em.”

Our host, when I arrived, had just been pulling weeds out of his potato
patch, which he mentioned as an apology for not being a little clean,
like the rest.

Beside the company I have mentioned, and the large family of the house,
there was another traveller and myself to dinner, and three bountiful
tables were spread, one after another.

The traveller was said to be a Methodist preacher, but gave no
indication of it, except that he said grace before meat, and used the
Hebrew word for Sunday. He was, however, a man of superior intelligence
to the others, who were ignorant and stupid, though friendly and
communicative. He asked me “what a good nigger man could be bought for
in New York;” he didn’t seem surprised, or make any further inquiry,
when I told him we had no slaves there. Some asked me much about crops,
and when I told them that my crops of wheat for six years had averaged
twenty-eight bushels, and that I had once reaped forty from a single
acre, they were amazed beyond expression, and anxious to know how I
“put it in.” I described the process minutely, which astonished them
still more; and one man said he had often thought they might get more
wheat if they put it in differently; he had thought that perhaps more
wheat would grow if more seed were sown, but he never tried it. The
general practice, they told me, was to sow wheat on ground from which
they had taken maize, without removing the maize stumps, or ploughing
it at all; they sowed three pecks of wheat to the acre, and then
ploughed it in—that was all. They used the cradle, but had never heard
of reaping machines; the crop was from five to ten bushels an acre;
ten bushels was extraordinary, six was not thought bad. Of cotton,
the ordinary crop was five hundred pounds to the acre, or from one to
two bales to a hand. Of maize, usually from ten to twenty bushels to
the acre; last year not over ten; this year they thought it would be
twenty-five on the best land.

The general admiration of Jude brought up the topic of negro dogs
again, and the clergyman told a story of a man who hunted niggers near
where he lived. He was out once with another man, when after a long
search, they found the dogs barking up a big cottonwood tree. They
examined the tree closely without finding any negro, and concluded that
the dogs must have been foiled, and they were about to go away, when
Mr. ——, from some distance off, thought he saw a negro’s leg very high
up in the tree, where the leaves and moss were thick enough to hide
a man lying on the top of a limb with his feet against the trunk. He
called out, as if he really saw a man, telling him to come down, but
nothing stirred. He sent for an axe, and called out again, saying he
would cut the tree to the ground if he didn’t come down. There was no
reply. He then cut half through the tree on one side, and was beginning
on the other, when the negro halloed out that if he would stop he would
come down. He stopped cutting, and the negro descended to the lowest
limb, which was still far from the ground, and asked the hunter to take
away his dogs, and promise they shouldn’t tear him. But the hunter
swore he’d make no conditions with him after having been made to cut
the tree almost down.

The negro said no more, but retained his position until the tree was
nearly cut in two. When it began to totter, he slid down the trunk, the
dogs springing upon him as soon as he was within their reach. He fought
them hard, and got hold of one by the ear; that made them fiercer, and
they tore him till the hunter was afraid they’d kill him, and stopped
them.

“Are dogs allowed to tear the negroes when they catch them?”

“When the hunters come up they always call them off, unless the nigger
fights. If the nigger fights ’em that makes ’em mad, and they let ’em
tear him good,” said the clergyman.

There were two or three young women present, and the young men were
sparking with them in the house, sitting on the beds for want of sofas,
the chairs being all in use outside; the rest of the company sat on the
gallery most of the time, but there was little conversation. It was
twice remarked to me, “Sunday’s a dull day—nothing to do.”

As the Methodist and I were reading after dinner, I noticed that two
or three were persuading the others to go with them somewhere, and I
asked where they purposed to go. They said they wanted to go over the
mountain to hunt a bull.

“To shoot him?”

“Oh, no, it’s a working bull; they got his mate yesterday. There ain’t
but one pair of cattle in this neighbourhood, and they do all the
hauling for nine families.” They belonged, together with their waggon,
to one man, and the rest borrowed of him. They wanted them this week to
cart in their oats. The stray bull was driven in toward night, yoked
with another to a waggon, and one of the women, with her family, got
into the waggon and was carried home. The bulls were fractious and had
to be led by one man, while another urged them forward with a cudgel.

Last night by the way a neighbour came into the house of Uncle Abram’s
master, and in the course of conversation about crops, said that on
Sunday he went over to John Brown’s to get him to come out and help him
at his harvesting. He found four others there for the same purpose, but
John said he didn’t feel well, and he reckoned he couldn’t work. He
offered him a dollar and a half a day to cradle for him; but when he
tried to persuade him, John spoke out plainly and said, “he’d be d—d if
he was going to work anyhow;” so he said to the others, “Come, boys,
we may as well go; you can’t make a lazy man work when he’s determined
he won’t.” He supposed that remark made him mad, for on Thursday John
came running across his cotton patch, where he was ploughing. He didn’t
speak a word to him, but cut along over to his neighbour’s house, and
told him that he had shot two deer, and wanted his hounds to catch ’em,
promising to give him half the venison if he succeeded. He did catch
one of them, and kept his promise.

This man Brown, they told me, had a large family, and lived in a
little cabin on the mountain. He pretended to plant a corn patch, but
he never worked it, and didn’t make any corn. They reckoned he lived
pretty much on what corn and hogs he could steal, and on game. The
children were described as pitiably, “scrawny,” half-starved little
wretches. Last summer his wife had come to one of them, saying they had
no corn, and she wanted to pick cotton to earn some. He had let her go
in with the niggers and pick. She kept at it for two days, and took her
pay in corn. Afterward he saw her little boy “toting” it to the mill to
be ground—much too heavy a load for him.

I asked if there were many such vagabonds.

“Yes, a great many on the mountain, and they make a heap of trouble.
There is a law by which they might be taken up [if it could be proved
that they have no ‘visible means of support’] and made to work to
support their families; but the law is never used.”

Speaking of another man, one said: “He’ll be here to breakfast, at your
house to dinner, and at Dr. ——’s to supper, leaving his family to live
as best they can.” They “reckoned” he got most of his living in that
way, while his family had to get theirs by stealing. He never did any
work except hunting, and they “reckoned” he killed about as many shoats
and yearlings as deer and turkeys.

They said that this sort of people were not often intemperate; they had
no money to buy liquor with; now and then, when they’d sold some game
or done a little work to raise money, they’d have a spree; but they
were more apt to gamble it off or spend it for fine clothes and things
to trick out their wives.

  *       *       *       *       *

_June —._ To-day, I am passing through a valley of thin, sandy soil,
thickly populated by poor farmers. Negroes are rare, but occasionally
neat, new houses, with other improvements, show the increasing
prosperity of the district. The majority of dwellings are small log
cabins of one room, with another separate cabin for a kitchen; each
house has a well, and a garden inclosed with palings. Cows, goats,
mules and swine, fowls and doves are abundant. The people are more
social than those of the lower country, falling readily into friendly
conversation with a traveller. They are very ignorant; the agriculture
is wretched and the work hard. I have seen three white women hoeing
field crops to-day. A spinning-wheel is heard in every house, and
frequently a loom is clanging in the gallery, always worked by women;
every one wears homespun. The negroes have much more individual freedom
than in the rich cotton country, and are not unfrequently heard singing
or whistling at their work.

  *       *       *       *       *

_Tennessee, June 29th._—At nightfall I entered a broader and more
populous valley than I had seen before during the day, but for some
time there were only small single room log cabins, at which I was loath
to apply for lodging. At length I reached a large and substantial log
house with negro cabins. The master sat in the stoop. I asked if he
could accommodate me.

“What do you want?”

“Something to eat for myself and horse, and room to sleep under your
roof.”

“The wust on’t is,” he said, getting up and coming toward me, “we
haven’t got much for your horse.”

“You’ve got corn, I suppose.”

“No, hain’t got no corn but a little that we want for ourselves, only
just enough to bread us till corn comes again.”

“Well, you have oats?”

“Hain’t got an oat.”

“Haven’t you hay?”

“No.”

“Then I must go further, for my horse can’t travel on fodder.”

“Hain’t got nary fodder nuther.”

Fortunately I did not have to go much farther before I came to the
best house I had seen during the day, a large, neat, white house, with
negro shanties, and an open log cabin in the front yard. A stout,
elderly, fine-looking woman, in a cool white muslin dress sat upon the
gallery, fanning herself. Two little negroes had just brought a pail of
fresh water, and she was drinking of it with a gourd, as I came to the
gate. I asked if it would be convenient for her to accommodate me for
the night, doubtingly, for I had learned to distrust the accommodations
of the wealthy slaveholders.

“Oh yes, get down; fasten your horse there, and the niggers will take
care of him when they come from their work. Come up here and take a
seat.”

I brought in my saddle-bags.

“Bring them in here, into the parlour,” she said, “where they’ll be
safe.”

The interior of the house was furnished with unusual comfort. “The
parlour,” however, had a bed in it. As we came out, she locked the door.

We had not sat long, talking about the weather (she was suffering much
from the heat), when her husband came. He was very hot also, though
dressed coolly enough in merely a pair of short-legged, unbleached
cotton trousers, and a shirt with the bosom spread open—no shoes nor
stockings. He took his seat before speaking to me, and after telling
his wife it was the hottest day he ever saw, squared his chair toward
me, threw it back so as to recline against a post, and said gruffly,
“Good evening, sir; you going to stay here to-night?”

I replied, and he looked at me a few moments without speaking. He was,
in fact, so hot that he spoke with difficulty. At length he got breath
and asked abruptly: “You a mechanic, sir, or a dentist, eh—or what?”

Supper was cooked by two young women, daughters of the master of the
house, assisted by the two little negro boys. The cabin in front of the
house was the kitchen, and when the bacon was dished up, one of the
boys struck an iron triangle at the door. “Come to supper,” said the
host, and led the way to the kitchen, which was also the supper-room.
One of the young ladies took the foot of the table, the other seated
herself apart by the fire, and actually waited on the table, though
the two negro boys stood at the head and foot, nominally waiters, but
always anticipated by the Cinderella, when anything was wanted.

A big lout of a youth who came from the field with the negroes, looked
in, but seeing me, retired. His father called, but his mother said, “’t
wouldn’t do no good—he was so bashful.”

Speaking of the climate of the country, I was informed that a majority
of the folks went barefoot all winter, though they had snow much of the
time four or five inches deep, and the man said he didn’t think most of
the men about here had more than one coat, and they never wore any in
winter except on holidays. “That was the healthiest way,” he reckoned,
“just to toughen yourself and not wear no coat; no matter how cold it
was, he didn’t wear no coat.”

The master held a candle for me while I undressed, in a large room
above stairs; and gave me my choice of the four beds in it. I found
one straw bed (with, as usual, but one sheet), on which I slept
comfortably. At midnight I was awakened by some one coming in. I
rustled my straw, and a voice said, “Who is there in this room?”

“A stranger passing the night; who are you?”

“All right; I belong here. I’ve been away and have just come home.”

He did not take his clothes off to sleep. He turned out to be an older
son who had been fifty miles away, looking after a stray horse. When I
went down stairs in the morning, having been wakened early by flies,
and the dawn of day through an open window, I saw the master lying
on his bed in the “parlour,” still asleep in the clothes he wore at
supper. His wife was washing her face on the gallery, being already
dressed for the day; after using the family towel, she went into the
kitchen, but soon returned, smoking a pipe, to her chair in the doorway.

Yet everything betokened an opulent and prosperous man—rich land,
extensive field crops, a number of negroes, and considerable herds of
cattle and horses. He also had capital invested in mines and railroads,
he told me. His elder son spoke of him as “the squire.”

A negro woman assisted in preparing breakfast (she had probably been
employed in the field labour the night before), and both the young
ladies were at the table. The squire observed to me that he supposed
we could buy hands very cheap in New York. I said we could hire them
there at moderate wages. He asked if we couldn’t buy as many as we
wanted, by sending to Ireland for them and paying their passage. He
had supposed we could buy them and hold them as slaves for a term of
years, by paying the freight on them. When I had corrected him, he
said, a little hesitatingly, “You don’t have no black slaves in New
York?” “No, sir.” “There’s niggers there, ain’t there, only they’re all
free?” “Yes, sir.” “Well, how do they get along so?” “So far as I know,
the most of them live pretty comfortably.” (I have changed my standard
of comfort lately, and am inclined to believe that the majority of the
negroes at the North live more comfortably than the majority of whites
at the South.) “I wouldn’t like that,” said the old lady. “I wouldn’t
like to live where niggers was free, they are bad enough when they are
slaves: it’s hard enough to get along with them here, they’re so bad.
I reckon that niggers are the meanest critters on earth; they are so
mean and nasty” (she expressed disgust and indignation very strongly in
her face). “If they was to think themselves equal to we, I don’t think
white folks could abide it—they’re such vile saucy things.” A negro
woman and two boys were in the room, as she said this.

  *       *       *       *       *

_North Carolina, July 13th._—I rode late last night, there being no
cabins for several miles in which I was willing to spend the night,
until I came to one of larger size than usual, with a gallery on the
side toward the road and a good stable opposite it. A man on the
gallery was about to answer (as I judged from his countenance), “I
reckon you can,” to my inquiry if I could stay, when the cracked voice
of a worryful woman screeched out from within, “We don’t foller takin’
in people.”

“No, sir,” said the man, “we don’t foller it.”

“How far shall I have to go?”

“There’s another house a little better than three quarters of a mile
further on.”

To this house I proceeded—a cabin of one room and a loft, with a
kitchen in a separate cabin. The owner said he never turned anybody
away, and I was welcome. He did not say that he had no corn, until
after supper, when I asked for it to feed my horse. The family were
good-natured, intelligent people, but very ignorant. The man and his
wife and the daughters slept below, the boy and I in the cock-loft.
Supper and breakfast were eaten in the detached kitchen. Yet they were
by no means poor people. The man told me that he had over a thousand
acres of rich tillable land, besides a large extent of mountain range,
the most of which latter he had bought from time to time as he was
able, to prevent the settlement of squatters near his valley-land.
“There were people who would be bad neighbours, I knew,” he said, “that
would settle on most any kind of place, and everybody wants to keep
such as far away from them as they can.” (When I took my bridle off, I
hung it up by the stable-door; he took it down and said he’d hang it in
a safer place. “He’d never had anything stolen from here, and he didn’t
mean to have—it was just as well not to put temptation before people,”
and he took it into the house and put it under his bed.)

Besides this large tract of land here, he owned another tract of two
hundred acres with a house upon it, rented for one-third the produce,
and another smaller farm, similarly rented; he also owned a grist mill,
which he rented to a miller for half the tolls. He told me that he had
thought a good deal formerly of moving to new countries, but he had
been doing pretty well and had stayed here now so long, he didn’t much
think he should ever budge. He reckoned he’d got enough to make him a
living for the rest of his life, and he didn’t know any use a man had
for more’n that.

I did not see a single book in the house, nor do I think that any of
the family could read. He said that many people here were talking about
Iowa and Indiana; “was Iowa (Hiaway) beyond the Texies?” I opened my
map to show him where it was, but he said he “wasn’t scollar’d enough”
to understand it, and I could not induce him to look at it. I asked
him if the people here preferred Iowa and Indiana to Missouri at all
because they were Free States. “I reckon,” he replied, “they don’t
have no allusion to that. Slavery is a great cuss, though, I think,
the greatest there is in these United States. There ain’t no account
of slaves up here in the west, but down in the east part of this State
about Fayetteville there’s as many as there is in South Carolina.
That’s the reason the West and the East don’t agree in this State;
people out here hates the Eastern people.”

“Why is that?”

“Why you see they vote on the slave basis, and there’s some of them
nigger counties where there ain’t more’n four or five hundred white
folks, that has just as much power in the Legislature as any of our
mountain counties where there’ll be some thousand voters.”

He made further remarks against slavery and against slaveholders. When
I told him that I entirely agreed with him, and said further, that poor
white people were usually far better off in the Free than in the Slave
States, he seemed a little surprised and said, “New York ain’t a Free
State, is it?”

Labourers’ wages here, he stated, were from fifty cents to one dollar
a day, or eight dollars a month. “How much by the year?” “They’s never
lured by the year.”

“Would it be $75 a year?”

“’Twouldn’t be over that, anyhow, but ’tain’t general for people to
hire here only for harvest time; fact is, a man couldn’t earn his
board, let alone his wages, for six months in the year.”

“But what do these men who hire out during harvest time do during the
rest of the year; do they have to earn enough in those two or three
months to live on for the other eight or nine?”

“Well, they gets jobs sometimes, and they goes from one place to
another.”

“But in winter time, when you say there’s not work enough to pay their
board?”

“Well, they keeps a goin’ round from one place to another, and gets
their living somehow.”

“The fact on’t is,” he said at length, as I pressed the inquiry, “there
ain’t anybody that ever means to work any in this country, except just
along in harvest—folks don’t keep working here as they do in your
country, I expect.”

“But they must put in their crops?”

“Yes, folks that have farms of their own, they do put in their craps
and tend ’em, but these fellows that don’t have farms, they won’t work
except in harvest, when they can get high wages [$8 a month]. I hired
a fellow last spring for six months; I wanted him to help me plant and
tend my corn. You see I had a short crap last year, and this spring I
had to pay fifty cents a bushel for corn for bread, and I didn’t want
to get caught so again, not this year, so I gin this fellow $6 a month
for six months—$36 I gin him in hard silver.”

“Paid it to him in advance?”

“Yes, he wouldn’t come ’less I’d pay him right then. Well, he worked
one month, and maybe eight days—no, I don’t think it was more than six
days over a month, and then he went away, and I hain’t seen a sight on
him since. I expect I shall lose my money—reckon he don’t ever intend
to come back; he knows I’m right in harvest, and want him now, if ever
I do.”

“What did he go away for?”

“Why, he said he was sick, but if he was, he got well mighty easy after
he stopped working.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

“Oh, yes, he’s going round here.”

“What is he doing?”

“Well, he’s just goin’ round.”

“Is he at work for any one else?”

“Reckon not—no, he’s just goin’ round from one place to another.”

At supper and breakfast surprise was expressed that I declined coffee,
and more still that I drank water instead of milk. The woman observed,
“’twas cheap boarding me.” The man said he must get home a couple more
cows; they ought to drink milk more, coffee was so high now, and he
believed milk would be just as healthy. The woman asked the price of
coffee in New York; I could not tell her, but said I believed it was
uncommonly high; the crops had been short. She asked how coffee grew.
I told her as well as I was able, but concluded by saying I had never
seen it growing. “Don’t you raise coffee in New York?” she asked; “I
thought that was where it came from.”

The butter was excellent. I said so, and asked if they never made any
for sale. The woman said she could make “as good butter as any ever was
made in the yarth, but she couldn’t get anything for it; there warn’t
many of the merchants would buy it, and those that did, would only take
it at eight cents a pound for goods.” The man said the only thing he
could ever sell for ready money was cattle. Drovers bought them for the
New York market, and lately they were very high—four cents a pound. He
had driven cattle all the way to Charleston himself, to sell them, and
only got four cents a pound there. He had sold corn here for twelve and
a half cents a bushel.

Although the man could not read, he had honoured letters by calling one
of his children “Washington Irving;” another was known as Matterson
(Madison?). He had never tried manuring land for crops, but said, “I do
believe it is a good plan, and if I live I mean to try it sometime.”

  *       *       *       *       *

_July 16th._—I stopped last night at the pleasantest house I have
yet seen in the highlands; a framed house, painted white, with a log
kitchen attached. The owner was a man of superior standing. I judged
from the public documents and law books on his table, that he had
either been in the Legislature of the State, or that he was a justice
of the peace. There were also a good many other books and newspapers,
chiefly of a religious character. He used, however, some singularly
uncouth phrases common here. He had a store, and carried on farming
and stock raising. After a conversation about his agriculture, I
remarked that there were but few slaves in this part of the country.
He wished that there were fewer. They were not profitable property
here, I presumed. They were not, he said, except to raise for sale;
but there were a good many people here who would not have them if
they were profitable, and yet who were abundantly able to buy them.
They were horrid things, he thought; he would not take one to keep
it if it should be given to him. ’Twould be a great deal better for
the country, he believed, if there was not a slave in it. He supposed
it would not be right to take them away from those who had acquired
property in them, without any remuneration, but he wished they could
all be sent out of the country—sent to Liberia. That was what ought
to be done with them. I said it was evident that where there were no
slaves, other things being equal, there was greater prosperity than
where slavery supplied the labour. He didn’t care so much for that, he
said; there was a greater objection to slavery than that, in his mind.
He was afraid that there was many a man who had gone to the bad world,
who wouldn’t have gone there if he hadn’t had any slaves. He had been
down in the nigger counties a good deal, and he had seen how it worked
on the white people. It made the rich people, who owned the niggers,
passionate and proud, and ugly, and it made the poor people mean.
“People that own niggers are always mad with them about something; half
their time is spent in swearing and yelling at them.”

“I see you have ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ here,” said I; “have you read it?”

“Oh, yes.”

“And what do you think of it?”

“Think of it? I think well of it.”

“Do most of the people here in the mountains think as you do about
slavery?”

“Well, there’s some thinks one way and some another, but there’s hardly
any one here that don’t think slavery’s a curse to our country, or who
wouldn’t be glad to get rid of it.”

I asked what the people about here thought of the Nebraska Bill. He
couldn’t say what the majority thought. Would people moving from here
to Nebraska now, be likely to vote for the admission of slavery there?
He thought not; “most people would much rather live in a Free State.”
He told me that he knew personally several persons who had gone to
California, and taken slaves with them, who had not been able to bring
them back. There were one or two cases where the negroes had been
induced to return, and these instances had been made much of in the
papers, as evidence that the slaves were contented.

“That’s a great lie,” he said; “they are not content, and nine-tenths
of ’em would do ’most anything to be free. It’s only now and then that
slaves, who are treated unusual kind, and made a great deal of, will
choose to remain in slavery if freedom is put in their way.” He knew
one man (giving his name) who tried to bring two slaves back from
California, and had got started with them, when some white people
suspecting it, went on board the ship and told him it was against the
law to hold negroes as slaves in California, and his negroes shouldn’t
go back with him unless they were willing to. Then they went to the
slaves and told them they need not return if they preferred to stay,
and the slaves said they had wanted very much to go back to North
Carolina, yet they would rather remain in California, if they could
be free, and so they took them ashore. He had heard the slave owner
himself relating this, and cursing the men who interfered. He had told
him that they did no more than Christians were obliged to do.

I overtook upon the road, to-day, three young men of the poorest class.
Speaking of the price of land and the profit of farming, one of them
said, believing me to be a southerner—

“We are all poor folks here; don’t hardly make enough to keep us in
liquor. Anybody can raise as much corn and hogs on the mountains as
he’ll want to live on, but there ain’t no rich people here. Nobody’s
got any black ones—only three or four; no one’s got fifty or a hundred,
like as they have down in the East.” “It would be better,” interrupted
another, somewhat fiercely, “there warn’t any at all; that’s my mind
about it; they’re no business here; they ought to be in their own
country and take care of themselves, that’s what I believe, and I
don’t care who hears it.” But let the reader not be deceived by these
expressions; they indicate simply the weakness and cowardice of the
class represented by these men. It is not slavery they detest; it is
simply the negro competition, and the monopoly of the opportunities to
make money by negro owners, which they feel and but dimly comprehend.

  *       *       *       *       *

If you meet a man without stopping, the salutation here always is, “How
d’ye do, sir?” never “Good morning;” and on parting it is, “I wish you
well, sir,” more frequently than “Good-bye.” You are always commanded
to appear at the table, as elsewhere throughout the South, in a rough,
peremptory tone, as if your host feared you would try to excuse
yourself.

“Come in to supper.” “Take a seat.” “Some of the fry?” “Help yourself
to anything you see that you can eat.”

They ask your name, but do not often call you by it, but hail you
“Stranger,” or “Friend.”

Texas is always spoken of in the plural—“the Texies.” “Bean’t the
Texies powerful sickly?”

“Ill” is used for “vicious.” “Is your horse ill?” “Not that I am aware
of. Does he appear so?” “No; but some horses will bite a stranger if he
goes to handling on ’em.”

“Is your horse ill?” “No, I believe not.” “I see he kind o’ drapt his
ears when I came up, ’zif he was playful.”

Everybody I’ve met in the last three counties—after ascertaining
what parts I came from, and which parts I’m going to, where I got my
horse, what he cost, and of what breed he is, what breed the dog is,
and whether she’s followed me all the way from the Texies, if her feet
ain’t worn out, and if I don’t think I’ll have to tote her if I go much
further, and if I don’t want to give her away, how I like the Texies,
etc.—has asked me whether I didn’t see a man by the name of Baker in
the Texies, who was sheriff of —— county, and didn’t behave exactly
the gentleman, or another fellow by the name of ——, who ran away from
the same county, and cut to the Texies. I’ve been asked if they had
done fighting yet in the Texies, referring to the war with Mexico,
which was ended ten years ago. Indeed the ignorance with regard to
everything transpiring in the world outside, and the absurd ideas and
reports I hear, are quite incredible. It cannot be supposed that having
been at home in New York, there should be any one there whom I do not
personally know, or that, having passed through Texas, I should be
unable to speak from personal knowledge of the welfare of every one in
that State.

  *       *       *       *       *

_North-eastern Tennessee_,——.—Night before last I spent at the
residence of a man who had six slaves; last night, at the home of a
farmer without slaves. Both houses were of the best class common in
this region; two-story framed buildings, large, and with many beds,
to accommodate drovers and waggoners, who, at some seasons, fill the
houses which are known to be prepared with stabling, corn, and beds for
them. The slaveholder was much the wealthier of the two, and his house
originally was the finer, but he lived in much less comfort than the
other. His house was in great need of repair, and was much disordered;
it was dirty, and the bed given me to sleep in was disgusting. He and
his wife made the signs of pious people, but were very morose or sadly
silent, when not scolding and re-ordering their servants. Their son,
a boy of twelve, was alternately crying and bullying his mother all
the evening till bed-time, because his father had refused to give him
something that he wanted. He slept in the same room with me, but did
not come to bed until after I had once been asleep, and then he brought
another boy to sleep with him. He left the candle burning on the floor,
and when, in five minutes after he had got into bed, a girl came after
it, he cursed her with a shocking volubility of filthy blackguardism,
demanding why she had not come sooner. She replied gently and
entreatingly, “I didn’t think you’d have more ’n got into bed yet,
master John.” The boys were talking and whispering obscenity till I
fell asleep again. The white women of the house were very negligent and
sluttish in their attire; the food at the table badly cooked, and badly
served by negroes.

The house of the farmer without slaves, though not in good repair,
was much neater, and everything within was well-ordered and unusually
comfortable. The women and girls were clean and neatly dressed;
every one was cheerful and kind. There was no servant. The table was
abundantly supplied with the most wholesome food—I might almost say the
first wholesome food—I have had set before me since I was at the hotel
at Natchez; loaf bread for the first time; chickens, stewed instead of
fried; potatoes without fat; two sorts of simple preserved fruit, and
whortleberry and blackberry tarts. (The first time I have had any of
these articles at a private house since I was in Western Texas.) All
the work, both within and without the house, was carried on regularly
and easily, and it was well done, because done by parties interested
in the result, not by servants interested only to escape reproof or
punishment.

Doubtless two extreme cases were thus brought together, but similar,
if less striking, contrasts are found the general rule, according to
my experience. It is a common saying with the drovers and waggoners of
this country, that if you wish to be well taken care of, you must not
stop at houses where they have slaves.

The man of the last described house was intelligent and an ardent
Methodist. The room in which I slept was papered with the “Christian
Advocate and Journal,” the Methodist paper of New York.[11] At the
slaveholder’s house, my bed-room was partially papered with “Lottery
Schemes.”

The free labouring farmer remarked, that, although there were few
slaves in this part of the country, he had often said to his wife that
he would rather be living where there were none. He thought slavery
wrong in itself, and deplorable in its effects upon the white people.
Of all the Methodists whom he knew in North-eastern Tennessee and
South-western Virginia, he believed that fully three fourths would be
glad to join the Methodist Church North, if it were “convenient.” They
generally thought slavery wrong, and believed it the duty of the church
to favour measures to bring it to an end. He was not an Abolitionist,
he said; he didn’t think slaves could be set free at once, but they
ought to be sent back to their own country, and while they were here
they ought to be educated. He had perceived that great injustice was
done by the people both of the North and South, towards each other. At
the South, people were very apt to believe that the Northerners were
wanting not only to deprive them of their property, but also to incite
the slaves to barbarity and murder. At the North, people thought that
the negroes were all very inhumanely treated. That was not the case, at
least hereabouts, it wasn’t. If I would go with him to a camp meeting
here, or to one of the common Sunday meetings, I would see that the
negroes were generally better dressed than the whites. He believed that
they were always well fed, and they were not punished severely. They
did not work hard, not nearly as hard as many of the white folks; they
were fat and cheerful. I said that I had perceived this, and it was so
generally, to a great degree, throughout the country; yet I was sure
that on the large plantations it was necessary to treat the slaves
with great severity. He “expected” it was so, for he had heard people
say, who had been on the great rice and cotton plantations in South
Carolina, that the negroes were treated very hard, and he knew there
was a man down here on the railroad, a contractor, who had some sixty
hands which he had hired in Old Virginny (“that’s what we call Eastern
Virginia here”), and everybody who saw them at work, said he drove them
till they could hardly stand, and did not give them half what they
ought to have to eat. He was opposed to the Nebraska Bill, he said, and
to any further extension of slavery, on any pretext; the North would
not do its Christian duty if it allowed slavery to be extended; he
wished that it could be abolished in Tennessee. He thought that many
of the people who went hence to Kansas would vote to exclude slavery,
but he wasn’t sure that they would do it generally, because they would
consider themselves Southerners, and would not like to go against
other Southerners. A large part of the emigration from this part of
the country went to Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa; those States being
preferred to Missouri, because they were Free States. There were fewer
slaves hereabouts now, than there were when he was a boy. The people
all thought slavery wrong, except, he supposed, some slaveholders
who, because they had property in slaves, would try to make out to
themselves that it was right. He knew one rich man who had owned a
great many slaves. He thought slavery was wrong, and he had a family of
boys growing up, and he knew they wouldn’t be good for anything as long
as he brought them up with slaves; so he had told his slaves that if
they wanted to be free, he would free them, send them to Liberia, and
give them a hundred dollars to start with, and they had all accepted
the offer. He himself never owned a slave, and never would own one for
his own benefit, if it were given to him, “first, because it was wrong;
and secondly, because he didn’t think they ever did a man much good.”

I noticed that the neighbours of this man on each side owned slaves;
and that their houses and establishments were much poorer than his.



CHAPTER IV.

THE EXCEPTIONAL LARGE PLANTERS.


_Feliciana._[12]—A deep notch of sadness marks in my memory the morning
of the May day on which I rode out of the chattering little town of
Bayou Sara, and I recollect little of its immediate suburbs but the
sympathetic cloud-shadows slowly going before me over the hill of St.
Francis. At the top is an old French hamlet.

One from among the gloomy, staring loungers at the door of the tavern,
as I pass, throws himself upon a horse, and overtaking me, checks his
pace to keep by my side. I turn towards him, and being full of aversion
for the companionship of a stranger, nod, in such a manner as to say,
“Your equaility is acknowledged; go on.” Not a nod; not the slightest
deflection of a single line in the austere countenance; not a ripple of
radiance in the sullen eyes, which wander slowly over, and, at distinct
intervals, examine my horse, my saddle-bags, my spurs, lariat, gloves,
finally my face, with such stern deliberation that, at last, I should
not be sorry if he would speak. But he does not; does not make the
smallest response to the further turning of my head, which acknowledges
the reflex interest in my own mind; his eyes rest as fixedly upon me as
if they were a dead man’s. I can, at length, no longer endure this in
silence, so I ask, in a voice attuned to his apparent humour—

“How far to Woodville?”

The only reply is a slight grunt, with an elevation of the chin.

“You don’t know?”

“No.”

“Never been there.”

“No.”

“I can ride there before night, I suppose?”

No reply.

“ood walker, your horse?”

Not a nod.

“I thought mine pretty good.”

Not a sneer, or a gleam of vanity, and Belshazzar and I warmed up
together. Scott’s man of leather occurred to my mind, and I felt sure
that I could guess my man’s chord. Cotton! I touched it, and in a
moment he became animated, civil; hospitable even. I was immediately
informed that this was a famous cotton region: “when it was first
settled up by ’Mericans, used to be reckoned the gardying of the world.
The almightiest rich sile God Almighty ever shuck down. All on’t owned
by big-bugs.” Finally he confided to me that he was an overseer for
one of them, “one of the biggest sort.” This greatest of the local
hemipteras was not now on his plantation, but had “gone North to Paris
or Saratogy, or some of them places.”

Wearing no waistcoat, the overseer carried a pistol, without a thought
of concealment, in the fob of his trousers. The distance to Woodville,
which, after he had exhausted his subject of cotton, I tried again
to ascertain, he did not know, and would not attempt to guess. The
ignorance of the more brutalized slaves is often described by saying
of them that they cannot count above twenty. I find many of the whites
but little more intelligent. At all events, it is rarely that you
meet, in the plantation districts, a man, whether white or black, who
can give you any clear information about the roads, or the distances
between places in his own vicinity. While in or near Bayou Sara and St.
Francisville, I asked, at different times, ten men, black and white,
the distance to Woodville (the next town to the northward on the map).
None answered with any appearance of certainty, and those who ventured
to give an opinion, differed in their estimates as much as ten miles.
I found the actual distance to be, I think, about twenty-four miles.
After riding by my side for a mile or two the overseer suddenly turned
off at a fork in the road, with hardly more ceremony than he had used
in joining me.

For some miles about St. Francisville the landscape has an open,
suburban character, with residences indicative of rapidly accumulating
wealth, and advancement in luxury, or careless expenditure, among the
proprietors. For twenty miles to the north of the town, there is on
both sides a succession of large sugar and cotton plantations. Much
land still remains uncultivated, however. The roadside fences are
generally hedges of roses—Cherokee and sweet brier. These are planted
first by the side of a common rail fence, which, while they are young,
supports them in the manner of a trellis; as they grow older they fall
each way, and mat together, finally forming a confused, sprawling,
slovenly thicket, often ten feet in breadth and four to six feet high.
Trumpet creepers, grape-vines, green-briers, and in very rich soil,
cane, grow up through the mat of roses, and add to its strength. It
is not as pretty as a more upright hedge, yet very agreeable, and, at
one or two points, where the road was narrow, deep, and lane like,
delightful memories of England were brought to mind.

There were frequent groves of magnolia grandiflora, large trees, and
every one in the glory of full blossom. The magnolia does not, however,
mass well, and the road-side woods were much finer, where the beech,
elm, and liquid amber formed the body, and the magnolias stood out
against them, magnificent chandeliers of fragrance. The large-leaved
magnolia, very beautiful at this season, was more rarely seen.

The soil seems generally rich, though much washed off the higher
ground. The ploughing is directed with some care not to favour this
process. Young pine trees, however, and other indications of rapid
impoverishment, are seen on many plantations.

The soil is a sandy loam, so friable that the negroes always working
in large gangs, superintended by a driver with a whip, continued their
hoeing in the midst of quite smart showers, and when the road had
become a poaching mud.

Only once did I see a gang which had been allowed to discontinue its
work on account of the rain. This was after a heavy thunder shower, and
the appearance of the negroes whom I met crossing the road in returning
to the field, from the gin-house to which they had retreated, was
remarkable. First came, led by an old driver carrying a whip, forty of
the largest and strongest women I ever saw together; they were all in
a simple uniform dress of a bluish check stuff, the skirts reaching
little below the knee; their legs and feet were bare; they carried
themselves loftily, each having a hoe over the shoulder, and walking
with a free, powerful swing. Behind them came the cavalry, thirty
strong, mostly men, but a few of them women, two of whom rode astride
on the plough mules. A lean and vigilant white overseer, on a brisk
pony, brought up the rear. The men wore small blue Scotch bonnets; many
of the women, handkerchiefs, turban fashion, and a few nothing at all
on their heads. They were evidently a picked lot. I thought that every
one would pass for a “prime” cotton hand.

The slaves generally of this district appear uncommonly well—doubtless,
chiefly, because the large incomes of their owners enables them to
select the best from the yearly exportations of Virginia and Kentucky,
but also because they are systematically well fed.

The plantation residences were of a cottage class, sometimes, but not
usually, with extensive and tasteful grounds about them.

An old gentleman, sensible, polite, and communicative, who rode
a short distance with me, said that many of the proprietors were
absentees—some of the plantations had dwellings only for the negroes
and the overseer. He called my attention to a field of cotton which,
he said, had been ruined by his overseer’s neglect. The negroes had
been allowed at a critical time to be careless in their hoeing, and it
would now be impossible to recover the ground then lost. Grass grew so
rampantly in this black soil, that if it once got a good start ahead,
you could never overtake it. That was the devil of a rainy season.
Cotton could stand drouth better than it could grass.[13]

The inclosures are not often of less area than a hundred acres. Fewer
than fifty negroes are seldom found on a plantation; many muster by the
hundred. In general the fields are remarkably free from weeds and well
tilled.

I arrived shortly after dusk at Woodville, a well-built and pleasant
court-town, with a small but pretentious hotel. Court was in
session, I fancy, for the house was filled with guests of somewhat
remarkable character. The landlord was inattentive, and, when followed
up, inclined to be uncivil. At the ordinary—supper and breakfast
alike—there were twelve men beside myself, all of them wearing black
cloth coats, black cravats, and satin or embroidered waistcoats; all,
too, sleek as if just from a hairdresser’s, and redolent of perfumes,
which really had the best of it with the exhalations of the kitchen.
Perhaps it was because I was not in the regulation dress that I found
no one ready to converse with me, and could obtain not the slightest
information about my road, even from the landlord.

I might have left Woodville with more respect for this decorum if I
had not, when shown by a servant to my room, found two beds in it,
each of which proved to be furnished with soiled sheets and greasy
pillows, nor was it without reiterated demands and liberal cash in hand
to the servant, that I succeeded in getting them changed on the one I
selected. A gentleman of embroidered waistcoat took the other bed as
it was, with no apparent reluctance, soon after I had effected my own
arrangements. One wash-bowl, and a towel which had already been used,
was expected to answer for both of us, and would have done so but that
I carried a private towel in my saddle-bags. Another requirement of a
civilized household was wanting, and its only substitute unavailable
with decency.

The bill was excessive, and the black ostler, who had left the mud of
yesterday hanging all along the inside of Belshazzar’s legs, and who
had put the saddle on so awkwardly that I resaddled him myself after he
had brought him to the door, grumbled, in presence of the landlord, at
the smallness of the gratuity which I saw fit to give him.

  *       *       *       *       *

The country, for some distance north of Woodville, is the most
uneven, for a non-mountainous region, I ever saw. The road seems well
engineered, yet you are nearly all the time mounting or descending
the sides of protuberances or basins, ribs or dykes. In one place it
follows along the top of a crooked ridge, as steep-sided and regular
for nearly a quarter of a mile, as a high railroad embankment. A man
might jump off anywhere and land thirty feet below. The ground being
too rough here for cultivation, the dense native forest remains intact.

This ridge, a man told me, had been a famous place for robberies. It is
not far from the Mississippi bottoms.

“Thar couldn’t be,” said he, “a better location for a feller that
wanted to foller that business. There was one chap there a spell ago,
who built himself a cabin t’other side the river. He used to come over
in a dug-out. He could paddle his dug-out up the swamp, you see, to
within two mile of the ridge; then, when he stopped a man, he’d run
through the woods to his dug-out, and before the man could get help,
he’d be t’other side the Mississippi, a sittin’ in his housen as honest
as you be.”

The same man had another story of the ridge:-

“Mr. Allen up here caught a runaway once, and started to take him down
to Woodville to the jail. He put him in irons and carried him along in
his waggin. The nigger was peaceable and submissive till they got along
onto that yer ridge place. When they got thar, all of a sudden he gin
a whop like, and over he went twenty foot plum down the side of the
ridge. ’Fore Allen could stop his hoss he’d tumbled and rolled himself
’way out of sight. He started right away arter him, but he never
cotched a sight on him again.”

Not far north of the ridge, plantations are found again, though the
character of the surface changes but little. The hill-sides are
carefully ploughed so that each furrow forms a contour line. After the
first ploughing the same lines are followed in subsequent cultivation,
year in and year out, as long as enough soil remains to grow cotton
upon with profit. On the hills recently brought into cultivation,
broad, serpentine ditches, having a fall of from two to four inches
in a rod, have been frequently constructed: these are intended to
prevent the formation of gullies leading more directly down the hill
during heavy rains. But all these precautions are not fully successful,
the cultivated hills, in spite of them, losing soil every year in a
melancholy manner.

I passed during the day four or five large plantations, the hill-sides
worn, cleft, and channelled like icebergs; stables and negro quarters
all abandoned, and everything given up to nature and decay.

In its natural state the virgin soil appears the richest I have ever
seen, the growth upon it from weeds to trees being invariably rank and
rich in colour. At first it is expected to bear a bale and a half of
cotton to the acre, making eight or ten bales for each able field-hand.
But from the cause described its productiveness rapidly decreases.

Originally, much of this country was covered by a natural growth of
cane, and by various nutritious grasses. A good northern farmer would
deem it a crying shame and sin to attempt to grow any crops upon such
steep slopes, except grasses or shrubs which do not require tillage.
The waste of soil which attends the practice is much greater than it
would be at the North, and, notwithstanding the unappeasable demand
of the world for cotton, its bad economy, considering the subject
nationally, cannot be doubted.

If these slopes were thrown into permanent terraces, with turfed or
stone-faced escarpments, the fertility of the soil might be preserved,
even with constant tillage. In this way the hills would continue for
ages to produce annual crops of greater value than those which are
at present obtained from them at such destructive expense—from ten
to twenty crops of cotton rendering them absolute deserts. But with
negroes at fourteen hundred dollars a head, and fresh land in Texas
at half a dollar an acre, nothing of this sort can be thought of. The
time will probably come when the soil now washing into the adjoining
swamps will be brought back by our descendants, perhaps on their heads,
in pots and baskets, in the manner Huc describes in China,—and which
may be seen also in the Rhenish vineyards,—to be relaid on these sunny
slopes, to grow the luxurious cotton in.

The plantations are all large, but, except in their size and rather
unusually good tillage, display few signs of wealthy proprietorship.
The greater number have but small and mean residences upon them. No
poor white people live upon the road, nor in all this country of rich
soils are they seen, except _en voyage_. In a distance of seventy-five
miles I saw no houses without negro-cabins attached, and I calculated
that there were fifty slaves, on an average, to every white family
resident in the country under my view. (There is a small sandy region
about Woodville, which I passed through after nightfall, and which, of
course, my note does not include.)

I called in the afternoon, at a house, almost the only one I had seen
during the day which did not appear to be the residence of a planter or
overseer, to obtain lodging. No one was at home but a negro woman and
children. The woman said that her master never took in strangers; there
was a man a few miles further on who did; it was the only place she
knew at which I was likely to “get in.”

I found the place: probably the proprietor was the poorest white man
whose house I had passed during the day, but he had several slaves; one
of them, at least, a very superior man, worth fully $2,000.

Just before me, another traveller, a Mr. S., from beyond Natchez, had
arrived. Learning that I was from Texas, he immediately addressed me
with volubility.

“Ah! then you can tell us something about it, and I would be obliged
to you if you would. Been out west about Antonio? Ranchering’s a good
business, eh, out west there? Isn’t it? Make thirty per cent. by it,
eh? I hear so. Should think that would be a good business. How much
capital ought a man to have to go into ranchering, good, eh? So as to
make it a good business?”

He was a middle-aged, well-dressed man, devouring tobacco prodigiously;
nervous and wavering in his manner; asking questions, a dozen at a
breath, and paying no heed to the answers. He owned a plantation in the
bottoms, and another on the upland; the latter was getting worn out, it
was too unhealthy for him to live in the bottoms, and so, as he said,
he had had “a good notion to go into ranchering. Just for ease and
pleasure.”

“Fact is, though, I’ve got a family, and this is no country for
children to be raised in. All the children get such foolish notions.
I don’t want my children to be brought up here. Ruins everybody. Does
sir, sure. Spoils ’em. Too bad. ’Tis so. Too bad. Can’t make anything
of children here, sir. Can’t sir. Fact.”

He had been nearly persuaded to purchase a large tract of land at
a point upon a certain creek where, he had been told, was a large
court-house, an excellent school, etc. The waters of the creek he
named are brackish, the neighbouring country is a desert, and the
only inhabitants, savages. Some knavish speculator had nearly got a
customer, but could not quite prevail on him to purchase until he
examined the country personally, which it was his intention soon to do.
He gave me no time to tell him how false was the account he had had,
but went on, after describing its beauties and advantages—

“But negro property isn’t very secure there, I’m told. How is’t? Know?”

“Not at all secure, sir; if it is disposed to go, it will go: the only
way you could keep it would be to make it always contented to remain.
The road would always be open to Mexico; it would go when it liked.”

“So I hear. Only way is, to have young ones there and keep their
mothers here, eh? Negroes have such attachments, you know. Don’t you
think that would fix ’em, eh? No? No, I suppose not. If they got mad at
anything, they’d forget their mothers, eh? Yes, I suppose they would.
Can’t depend on niggers. But I reckon they’d come back. Only to be
worse off in Mexico—eh?”

“Nothing but——”

“Being free, eh? Get tired of that, I should think. Nobody to take
care of them. No, I suppose not. Learn to take care of themselves.”

Then he turned to our host and began to ask him about his neighbours,
many of whom he had known when he was a boy, and been at school with.
A sorry account he got of most. Generally they had run through their
property; their lands had passed into new hands; their negroes had
been disposed of; two were now, he thought, “strikers” for gamblers in
Natchez.

“What is a striker?” I asked the landlord at the first opportunity.

“Oh! to rope in fat fellows for the gamblers; they don’t do that
themselves, but get somebody else. I don’t know as it is so; all I
know is, they don’t have no business, not till late at night; they
never stir out till late at night, and nobody knows how they live, and
that’s what I expect they do. Fellows that come into town flush, you
know—sold out their cotton and are flush—they always think they must
see everything, and try their hands at everything—they get hold of ’em
and bring ’em in to the gamblers, and get ’em tight for ’em, you know.”

“How’s —— got along since his father died?” asked Mr. S.

“Well, ——’s been unfortunate. Got mad with his overseer; thought he was
lazy and packed him off; then he undertook to oversee for himself, and
he was unfortunate. Had two bad crops. Finally the sheriff took about
half his niggers. He tried to work the plantation with the rest, but
they was old, used-up hands, and he got mad that they would not work
more, and tired o’ seein’ ’em, and ’fore the end of the year he sold
’em all.”

Another young man, whom he inquired about, had had his property
managed for him by a relative till he came of age, and had been sent
North to college. When he returned and got into his own hands, the
first year he ran it in debt $16,000. The income from it being greatly
reduced under his management, he had put it back in the care of his
relative, but continued to live upon it. “I see,” continued our host,
“every time any of their teams pass from town they fetch a barrel or
a demijohn. There is a parcel of fellows, who, when they can’t liquor
anywhere else, always go to him.”

“But how did he manage to spend so much,” I inquired, “the first year
after his return, as you said,—in gambling?”

“Well, he gambled some, and run horses. He don’t know anything about a
horse, and, of course, he thinks he knows everything. Those fellows up
at Natchez would sell him any kind of a tacky for four or five hundred
dollars, and then after he’d had him a month, they’d ride out another
and make a bet of five or six hundred dollars they’d beat him. Then
he’d run with ’em, and of course he’d lose it.”

“But sixteen thousand dollars is a large sum of money to be worked off
even in that way in a year,” I observed.

“Oh, he had plenty of other ways. He’d go into a bar-room, and get
tight and commence to break things. They’d let him go on, and the next
morning hand him a bill for a hundred dollars. He thinks that’s a smart
thing, and just laughs and pays it, and then treats all around again.”

By one and the other, many stories were then told of similar follies of
young men. Among the rest, this:—

A certain man had, as was said to be the custom when running for
office, given an order at a grocery for all to be “treated” who applied
in his name. The grocer, after the election, which resulted in the
defeat of the treater, presented what was thought an exorbitant bill.
He refused to pay it, and a lawsuit ensued. A gentleman in the witness
box being asked if he thought it possible for the whole number of
people taking part in the election to have consumed the quantity of
liquor alleged, answered—

“Moy Goad! Judge!” (reproachfully): “Yes, sir! Why, I’ve been charged
for a hundred and fifty drinks _’fore breakfast_, when I’ve stood
treat, and I never thought ’o disputin’ it.”

At supper, Mr. S., looking at the daughter of our host, said—

“What a pretty girl that is. My dear, do you find any schools to go to,
out here—eh? I reckon not. This isn’t the country for schools. There’ll
not be a school in Mississippi ’fore long, I reckon. Nothing but
Institutes, eh? Ha! ha! ha! Institutes, humph! Don’t believe there’s a
school between this and Natchez, is there?”

“No, sir.”

“Of course there isn’t.”[14]

“What sort of a country is it, then, between here and Natchez?” I
asked. “I should suppose it would be well settled.”

“Big plantations, sir. Nothing else. Aristocrats. Swell-heads, I
call them, sir. Nothing but swell-heads, and you can’t get a night’s
lodging, sir. Beyond the ferry, I’ll be bound, a man might die on
the road ’fore he’d get a lodging with one of them. Eh, Mr. N.? So,
isn’t it? ‘Take a stranger in, and I’ll clear you out!’ That’s the
rule. That’s what they tell their overseers, eh? Yes, sir; just so
inhospitable as that. Swell-heads! Swell-heads, sir. Every plantation.
Can’t get a meal of victuals or a night’s lodging from one of them, I
don’t suppose, not if your life depended on it. Can you, Mr. N.?”

“Well, I believe Mr. ——, his place is right on the road, and it’s half
way to the ferry, and I believe he tells his overseer if a man comes
and wants something to eat, he must give it to him, but he must not
take any pay for it, because strangers must have something to eat. They
start out of Natchez, thinking it’s as ’tis in other countries; that
there’s houses along, where they can get a meal, and so they don’t
provide for themselves, and when they get along about there, they are
sometimes desperate hungry. Had to be something done.”

“Do the planters not live themselves on their plantations?”

“Why, a good many of them has two or three plantations, but they don’t
often live on any of them.”

“Must have ice for their wine, you see,” said Mr. S., “or they’d die.
So they have to live in Natchez or New Orleans. A heap of them live in
New Orleans.”

“And in summer they go up into Kentucky, do they not? I’ve seen
country houses there which were said to belong to cotton-planters from
Mississippi.”

“No, sir. They go North. To New York, and Newport, and Saratoga, and
Cape May, and Seneca Lake. Somewhere that they can display themselves
more than they do here. Kentucky is no place for that. That’s the
sort of people, sir, all the way from here to Natchez. And all round
Natchez, too. And in all this section of country where there’s good
land. Good God! I wouldn’t have my children educated, sir, among them,
not to have them as rich as Dr. ——, every one of them. You can know
their children as far off as you can see them. Young swell-heads!
You’ll take note of ’em in Natchez. You can tell them by their walk. I
noticed it yesterday at the Mansion House. They sort o’ throw out their
legs as if they hadn’t got strength enough to lift ’em and put them
down in any particular place. They do want so bad to look as if they
weren’t made of the same clay as the rest of God’s creation.”

Some allowance is of course to be made for the splenetic temperament of
this gentleman, but facts evidently afford some justification of his
sarcasms. This is easily accounted for. The farce of the vulgar-rich
has its foundation in Mississippi, as in New York and in Manchester, in
the rapidity with which certain values have advanced, especially that
of cotton, and, simultaneously, that of cotton lands and negroes.[15]
Of course, there are men of refinement and cultivation among the rich
planters of Mississippi, and many highly estimable and intelligent
persons outside of the wealthy class, but the number of such is smaller
in proportion to that of the immoral, vulgar, and ignorant newly-rich,
than in any other part of the United States. And herein is a radical
difference between the social condition of this region and that of the
sea-board slave States, where there are fewer wealthy families, but
where among the few people of wealth, refinement and education are more
general.

I asked how rich the sort of men were of whom he spoke.

“Why, sir, from a hundred thousand to ten million.”

“Do you mean that between here and Natchez there are none worth less
than a hundred thousand dollars?”

“No, sir, not beyond the ferry. Why, any sort of a plantation is worth
a hundred thousand dollars. The niggers would sell for that.”

“How many negroes are there on these plantations?”

“From fifty to a hundred.”

“Never over one hundred?”

“No; when they’ve increased to a hundred they always divide them; stock
another plantation. There are sometimes three or four plantations
adjoining one another, with an overseer for each, belonging to the same
man. But that isn’t general. In general, they have to strike off for
new land.”

“How many acres will a hand tend here?”

“About fifteen—ten of cotton, and five of corn; some pretend to make
them tend twenty.”

“And what is the usual crop?”

“A bale and a half to the acre on fresh land and in the bottom. From
four to eight bales to a hand they generally get: sometimes ten and
better, when they are lucky.”

“A bale and a half on fresh land? How much on old?”

“Well, you can’t tell. Depends on how much it’s worn and what the
season is so much. Old land, after a while, isn’t worth bothering with.”

“Do most of these large planters who live so freely, anticipate their
crops as the sugar planters are said to—spend the money, I mean, before
the crop is sold?”

“Yes, sir, and three and four crops ahead generally.”

“Are most of them the sons of rich men? are they old estates?”

“No, sir; lots of them were overseers once.”

“Have you noticed whether it is a fact that these large properties
seldom continue long in the same family? Do the grandsons of wealthy
planters often become poor men?”

“Generally the sons do. Almost always their sons are fools, and soon go
through with it.”

“If they don’t kill themselves before their fathers die,” said the
other.

“Yes. They drink hard and gamble, and of course that brings them into
fights.”

This was while they were smoking on the gallery after supper. I walked
to the stable to see how my horse was provided for, and took my notes
of the conversation. When I returned they were talking of negroes who
had died of yellow fever while confined in the jail at Natchez. Two of
them were spoken of as having been thus “happily released,” being under
sentence of death, and unjustly so, in their opinion.

A man living in this vicinity having taken a runaway while the fever
was raging in the jail at Natchez, a physician advised him not to send
him there. He did not, and the negro escaped; was some time afterward
recaptured, and the owner having learned from him that he had been once
before taken and not detained according to law, he made a journey to
inquire into the matter, and was very angry. He said, “Whenever you
catch a nigger again, you send him to jail, no matter what’s to be
feared. If he dies in the jail, you are not responsible. You’ve done
your duty, and you can leave the rest to Providence.”

“That was right, too,” said Mr. P. “Yes, he ought to a’ minded the law.
Then if he’d died in jail, he’d know ’twasn’t his fault.”

Next morning, near the ferry house, I noticed a set of stocks, having
holes for the head as well as the ankles; they stood unsheltered and
unshaded in the open road.

I asked an old negro what it was.

“Dat ting, massa?” grinning; “well, sah, we calls dat a ting to put
black people, niggers, in, when dey misbehaves bad, and to put runaways
in, sah. Heaps o’ runaways, dis country, sah. Yes, sah, heaps on ’em
round here.”[16]

Mr. S. and I slept in the same room. I went to bed some time before
him; he sat up late, to smoke, he said. He woke me when he came
in, by his efforts to barricade the door with our rather limited
furniture. The room being small, and without a window, I expostulated.
He acknowledged it would probably make us rather too warm, but he
shouldn’t feel safe if the door were left open. “You don’t know,” said
he; “there may be runaways around.”

He then drew two small revolvers, hitherto concealed under his
clothing, and began to examine the caps. He was certainly a nervous
man, perhaps a madman. I suppose he saw some expression of this thought
in my face, for he said, placing them so they could be easily taken up
as he lay in bed, “Sometimes a man has a use for them when he least
expects it. There was a gentleman on this road a few days ago. He was
going to Natchez. He overtook a runaway, and he says to him, ‘Bad
company’s better’n none, boy, and I reckon I’ll keep you along with me
into Natchez.’ The nigger appeared to be pleased to have company, and
went along, talking with him, very well, till they came to a thicket
place, about six miles from Natchez. Then he told him he reckoned he
would not go any further with him. ‘What! you black rascal,’ says he;
‘you mean you won’t go in with me? You step out and go straight ahead,
and if you turn your face till you get into Natchez, I’ll shoot you.’
‘Aha! massa,’ says the nigger, mighty good-natured, ‘I reckon you ’aint
got no shootin’ irons;’ and he bolted off into the thicket, and got
away from him.”

At breakfast, Mr. S. came late. He bowed his head as he took his seat,
and closed his eyes for a second or two; then, withdrawing his quid of
tobacco and throwing it in the fireplace, he looked round with a smile,
and said:—

“I always think it a good plan to thank the Lord for His mercies. I’m
afraid some people’ll think I’m a member of the church. I aint, and
never was. Wish I was. I am a Son, though [of Temperance?] Give me
some water, girl. Coffee first. Never too soon for coffee. And never
too late, I say. Wait for anything but coffee. These swell-heads drink
their coffee after they’ve eaten all their dinner. I want it with
dinner, eh? Don’t nothing taste good without coffee, I reckon.”

Before he left, he invited me to visit his plantations, giving me
careful directions to find them, and saying that if he should not have
returned before I reached them, his wife and his overseer would give
me every attention if I would tell them he told me to visit them. He
said again, and in this connection, that he believed this was the
most inhospitable country in the world, and asked, “as I had been a
good deal of a traveller, didn’t I think so myself?” I answered that
my experience was much too small to permit me to form an opinion so
contrary to that generally held.

If they had a reputation for hospitality, he said, it could only be
among their own sort. They made great swell-head parties; and when they
were on their plantation places, they made it a point to have a great
deal of company; they would not have anything to do if they didn’t. But
they were all swell-heads, I might be sure; they’d never ask anybody
but a regular swell-head to see them.

His own family, however, seemed not to be excluded from the swell-head
society.

Among numerous anecdotes illustrative of the folly of his neighbours,
or his own prejudices and jealousy, I remember none which it would be
proper to publish but the following:-

“Do you remember a place you passed?” [describing the locality].

“Yes,” said I; “a pretty cottage with a large garden, with some statues
or vases in it.”

“I think it likely. Got a foreign gardener, I expect. That’s all the
fashion with them. A nigger isn’t good enough for them. Well, that
belongs to Mr. A. J. Clayborn.[?] He’s got to be a very rich man. I
suppose he’s got as many as five hundred people on all his places. He
went out to Europe a few years ago, and sometime after he came back,
he came up to Natchez. I was there with my wife at the same time, and
as she and Mrs. Clayborn came from the same section of country, and
used to know each other when they were girls, she thought she must
go and see her. Mrs. Clayborn could not talk about anything but the
great people they had seen in Europe. She was telling of some great
nobleman’s castle they went to, and the splendid park there was to it,
and how grandly they lived. For her part, she admired it so much, and
they made so many friends among the people of quality, she said, she
didn’t care if they always stayed there. In fact, she really wanted Mr.
Clayborn to buy one of the castles, and be a nobleman himself. ‘But he
wouldn’t,’ says she; ‘he’s such a strong Democrat, you know.’ Ha! ha!
ha! I wonder what old Tom Jeff. would have said to these swell-head
Democrats.”

I asked him if there were no poor people in this country. I could see
no houses which seemed to belong to poor people.

“Of course not, sir. Every inch of the land bought up by the
swell-heads on purpose to keep them away. But you go back on to the
pine ridge. Good Lord! I’ve heard a heap about the poor folks at the
North; but if you ever saw any poorer people than them, I should like
to know what they live on. Must be a miracle if they live at all. I
don’t see how these people live, and I’ve wondered how they do a great
many times. Don’t raise corn enough, great many of them, to keep a
shoat alive through the winter. There’s no way they can live, ’less
they steal.”

At the ferry of the Homochitto I fell in with a German, originally
from Dusseldorf, whence he came seventeen years ago, first to New
York; afterward he had resided successively in Baltimore, Cincinnati,
New Orleans, Pensacola, Mobile, and Natchez. By the time he reached
the last place he had lost all his money. Going to work as a labourer
in the town, he soon earned enough again to set him up as a trinket
peddler; and a few months afterward he was able to buy “a leetle
coach-dray.” Then, he said, he made money fast; for he would go back
into the country, among the poor people, and sell them trinkets, and
calico, and handkerchiefs, and patent medicines. They never had any
money. “All poor folks,” he said; “dam poor; got no money; oh no; but
I say, ’dat too bad, I don’t like to balk you, my frind; may be so,
you got some egg, some fedder, some cheeken, some rag, some sass, or
some skin vot you kill.’ I takes dem dings vot they’s got, and ven I
gets my load I cums to Natchez back and sells dem, alvays dwo or dree
times so much as dey coss me; and den I buys some more goots. Not bad
beesnes—no. Oh, dese poor people dey deenk me is von fool ven I buy
some dime deir rag vat dey bin vear; dey calls me de ole Dutch cuss.
But dey don’t know nottin’ vot it is vorth. I deenk dey neever see no
money; may be so dey geev all de cheeken vot they been got for a leetle
breaspin vot cost me not so much as von beet. Sometime dey be dam crazy
fool; dey know not how do make de count at all. Yees, I makes some
money, a heap.”

  *       *       *       *       *

From the Homochitto to the suburbs of Natchez, a good half-day’s ride,
I found the country beautiful; fewer hills than before, the soil very
rich, and the land almost all inclosed in plantations, the roadside
boundaries of which are old rose-hedges. The road is well constructed,
and often, in passing through the hills, with high banks on each
side, coped with thick and dark, but free and sportive hedges, out of
which grow bending trees, brooding angle-like over the traveller, the
sentiment of the most charming Herefordshire lanes is reproduced. There
are also frequent oak-woods, the trees often of great height. Sometimes
these have been inclosed with neat palings, and slightly and tastefully
thinned out, so as to form noble grounds around the residences of
the planters, which are always very simple and unostentatious wooden
houses. Near two of these are unusually good ranges of negro-houses.
On many of the plantations, perhaps most, no residence is visible from
the road, and the negro quarters, when seen, are the usual comfortless
log-huts.

Within three miles of the town the country is entirely occupied by
houses and grounds of a villa character; the grounds usually paltry
with miniature terraces, and trees and shrubs planted and trimmed with
no regard to architectural or landscape considerations. There is,
however, an abundance of good trees, much beautiful shrubbery, and
the best hedges and screens of evergreen shrubs that I have seen in
America. The houses are cheap and shabby.

I was amused to recognize specimens of the “swell-head” fraternity,
described by my nervous friend, as soon as I got into the villa
district. First came two boys in a skeleton waggon, pitching along with
a racking pony, which ran over Jude; she yelped, I wheeled round, and
they pulled up and looked apologetic. She was only slightly hurt, but
thereafter gave a quicker and broader sheer to approaching vehicles
than her Texas experience had taught her to do.

Then came four youthful riders, and two old, roué-looking men, all upon
a match-trot; the young fellows screaming, breaking up, and swearing.
After them cantered a mulatto groom, white-gloved and neatly dressed,
who, I noticed, bowed politely, lifting his hat and smiling to a very
aged and ragged negro with a wheelbarrow and shovel, on the foot path.

Next came—and it was a swelteringly hot afternoon—an open carriage
with two ladies taking an airing. Mr. S. had said that the swell-heads
had “got to think that their old maumy niggers were not good enough
for their young ones;” and here, on the front seat of the carriage,
was a white and veritable French bonne, holding a richly-belaced baby.
The ladies sat back, good-looking women enough, prettily dressed, and
excessively demure. But the dignity of the turn-out chiefly reposed
in the coachman, an obese old black man, who had, by some means, been
set high up in the sun’s face, on the bed-like cushion of the box, to
display a great livery top-coat, with the wonted capes and velvet,
buttoned brightly and tightly to the chin, and crowned by the proper
emblazoned narrow-brimmed hat; his elbows squared, the reins and whip
in his hands, the sweat in globules all over his ruefully-decorous
face, and his eyes fast closed in sleep.

The houses and shops within the town itself are generally small, and
always inelegant. A majority of the names on the signs are German; the
hotel is unusually clean, and the servants attentive; and the stable at
which I left Belshazzar is excellent, and contains several fine horses.
Indeed, I never saw such a large number of fine horses as there is
here, in any other town of the size. At the stable and the hotel there
is a remarkable number of young men, extraordinarily dressed, like
shop-boys on a Sunday excursion, all lounging or sauntering, and often
calling at the bar; all smoking, all twisting lithe walking-sticks, all
“talking horse.”

But the grand feature of Natchez is the bluff, terminating in an
abrupt precipitous bank over the river, with the public garden upon
it. Of this I never had heard; and when, after seeing my horse dried
off and eating his oats with great satisfaction—the first time he has
ever tasted oats, I suppose, and I had not seen them before for many
months—I strolled off to see the town, I came upon it by surprise. I
entered a gate and walked up a slope, supposing that I was approaching
the ridge or summit of a hill, and expecting to see beyond it a
corresponding slope and the town again, continuing in terraced streets
to the river. I suddenly found myself on the very edge of a great
cliff, and before me an indescribably vast expanse of forest, extending
on every hand to a hazy horizon, in which, directly in front of me,
swung the round, red, setting sun. Through the otherwise unbroken
forest, the Father of Waters had opened a passage for himself, forming
a perfect arc, the hither shore of the middle of the curve being
hidden under the crest of the cliff, and the two ends lost in the
vast obscurity of the Great West. Overlooked from such an eminence,
the size of the Mississippi can be realized—which is difficult under
ordinary circumstances; but though the fret of a swelling torrent is
not wanting, it is perceptible only as the most delicate chasing upon
the broad, gleaming expanse of polished steel, which at once shamed all
my previous conceptions of the appearance of the greatest of rivers.

Coming closer to the edge and looking downward, you see the lower town,
of Natchez, its roofs with water flowing all around them, and its pigmy
people wading, and labouring to carry upward their goods and furniture,
in danger from a rising movement of the great water. Poor people,
“emigrants and niggers” only.

I laid down, and would have reposed my mind in the infinite vision
westward, but was presently disturbed by a hog which came grunting
near me, rooting in the poor turf of this wonderful garden. I rose
and walked its length. Little more has been done than to inclose a
space along the edge, which it would have been dangerous to build
upon, to cut out some curving alleys now recaptured by the grass and
weeds, and to plant a few succulent trees. A road to the lower town,
cutting through it, is crossed by slight wooden foot-bridges, and
there are some rough plank benches, adorned with stencilled “medical”
advertisements. Some shrubs are planted on the crumbling face of the
cliff, so near the top that the swine can obtain access to them. A man,
bearded and smoking, and a woman with him, sitting at the extreme end,
were the only visitors except myself and the swine.

  *       *       *       *       *

As I am writing there is a bustle in the street. A young man is being
lifted up and carried into the bar-room. He is insensible. A beautiful
mare, from which he has evidently been thrown, is led back from around
the corner, quivering with excitement.

  *       *       *       *       *

I could find no reading-room; no recent newspapers except _The Natchez
Free Trader_, which has nothing but cotton and river news and steamboat
puffs; no magazines but aged Harpers; and no recent publications of any
sort are for sale or to be seen at the booksellers’; so, after supper,
I went to the bluff again, and found it most solemnly beautiful; the
young moon shining through rents in the clouds: the great gleaming
crescent of water; the dim, ungapped horizon; the earth sensibly a mere
swinging globe.

Of all the town, only five Germans, sitting together, but smoking in
silence, had gathered for this evening worship.

As I returned up the main street, I stopped opposite a house from which
there came the sound of excellent music—a violin and piano. I had heard
no music since I was in Western Texas, and I leaned upon a lamp-post
for an hour, listening. Many stopped near me for a few minutes, and
went on. At length, a man who had remained some time, addressed me,
speaking in a foreign tongue. “Can’t you speak English?” said I.

“You are not an American?”

“Yes.”

“I should tzink it not.”

“I am; I am a New Yorker.”

“So?—O yes, perhaps, but not zis country.”

“What are you?”

“Italian.”

“Do you live here?”

“Yes.”

“Are there many Italians in Natchez?”

“Yes—some many—seven. All big dam rascaal. Yes. Ha! ha! ha! True. Dam
rascaal all of us.”

“What do you do for a living here?”

“For me it is a cigar-store; fruit; confectionary.”

“And the rest?”

“Oh, everytzing. I don’t expect dem be here so much long now.”

“Why—what will they do?”

“Dey all go to Cuba. Be vawr zair soon now. All go. All dam rascaal go,
can go, ven ze vawr is. Good ting dat for Natchez, eh? Yes, I tzink.”

He told me the names of the players; the violinist, an Italian,
he asserted to be the best in America. He resided in Natchez, I
understood, as a teacher; and, I presume, the town has metropolitan
advantages for instruction in all fashionable accomplishments. Yet,
with a population of 18,601, the number of children registered for the
public schools and academies, or “Institutes,” of the county seat, is
but 1,015; and among these must be included many sent from other parts
of the State, and from Arkansas and Louisiana; the public libraries
contain but 2,000 volumes, and the churches seat but 7,700.[17]

Franklin, the next county in the rear of the county in which Natchez
is situated (Adams), has a population of 6,000, and but 132 children
attending school.

Mr. Russell (_North America: its Agriculture and Climate_, page 258)
states that he had been led to believe that “as refined society was to
be found at Natchez as in any other part of the United States;” but
_his personal observation_ is, that “the chief frequenters of the best
hotel are low, drunken fellows.” I find a crowd of big, silly boys,
not drunk, but drinking, smoking, chewing, and betting, and a few men
who look like dissolute fourth-rate comedians, who have succeeded in
swindling a swell-mob tailor.

  *       *       *       *       *

The first night after leaving Natchez I found lodging with a German,
who, when I inquired if he could accommodate me, at once said, “Yes,
sir, I make it _a business_ to lodge travellers.”

He had a little farm, and owned four strong negro men and a woman with
several children. All his men, however, he hired out as porters or
servants in Natchez, employing a white man, a native of the country, to
work with him on his farm.

To explain the economy of this arrangement, he said that one of his
men earned in Natchez $30 a month clear of all expenses, and the others
much more than he could ever make their labour worth to him. A negro
of moderate intelligence would hire, as a house-servant, for $200 a
year and his board, which was worth $8 a month; whereas he hired this
white fellow, who was strong and able, for $10 a month; and he believed
he got as much work out of him as he could out of a negro. If labour
were worth so much as he got for that of his negroes, why did the white
man not demand more? Well—he kept him in whisky and tobacco beside
his wages, and he was content. Most folks here did not like white
labourers. They had only been used to have niggers do their work, and
they did not know how to manage with white labourers; but he had no
difficulty.

I asked if eight dollars would cover the cost of a man’s board? He
supposed it might cost him rather more than that to keep the white man;
eight dollars was what it was generally reckoned in town to cost to
keep a negro; niggers living in town or near it were expected to have
“extras;” out on the plantations, where they did not get anything but
bacon and meal, of course it did not cost so much. Did he know what it
cost to keep a negro generally upon the plantations? It was generally
reckoned, he said, that a nigger ought to have a peck of meal and three
pounds of bacon a week; some didn’t give so much meat, but he thought
it would be better to give them more.

“You are getting rich,” I said. “Are the Germans generally, hereabouts,
doing well? I see there are a good many in Natchez.”

“Oh yes; anybody who is not too proud to work can get rich here.”

The next day, having ridden thirty tedious miles through a sombre
country, with a few large plantations, about six o’clock I called at
the first house standing upon or near the road which I have seen for
some time, and solicited a lodging. It was refused, by a woman. How
far was it to the next house? I asked her. Two miles and a half. So I
found it to be, but it was a deserted house, falling to decay, on an
abandoned plantation. I rode several miles further, and it was growing
dark, and threatening rain, before I came in sight of another. It
was a short distance off the road, and approached by a private lane,
from which it was separated by a grass plat. A well dressed man stood
between the gate and the house. I stopped and bowed to him, but he
turned his back upon me and walked to the house. I opened a gate and
rode in. Two men were upon the gallery, but as they paid no attention
to my presence when I stopped near them, I doubted if either were the
master of the house. I asked, “Could I obtain a lodging here to-night,
gentlemen?” One of them answered, surlily, “No.” I paused a moment that
they might observe me—evidently a stranger benighted, with a fatigued
horse, and then asked, “Can you tell me, sir, how far it is to a
public-house?” “I don’t know,” replied the same man. I again remained
silent a moment. “No public-houses in this section of the country, I
reckon, sir,” said the other. “Do you know how far it is to the next
house on the road, north of this?” “No,” answered one. “You’ll find one
about two miles, or two miles and a half from here,” said the other.
“Is it a house in which I shall be likely to get a lodging, do you
know?” “I don’t know, I’m sure.”

“Good night, gentlemen; you’ll excuse me for troubling you. I am
entirely a stranger in this region.”

A grunt, or inarticulate monosyllable, from one of them, was the only
reply, and I rode away, glad that I had not been fated to spend an
evening in such company.

Soon afterward I came to a house and stables close upon the road.
There was a man on the gallery playing the fiddle. I asked, “Could you
accommodate me here to-night, sir?” He stopped fiddling, and turned his
head toward an open door, asking, “Wants to know if you can accommodate
him?” “Accommodate him with what?” demanded a harsh-toned woman’s
voice. “With a bed of course—what do you s’pose—ho! ho! ho!” and he
went on fiddling again. I had, during this conversation, observed
ranges of negro huts behind the stables, and perceived that it must
be the overseer’s house of the plantation at which I had previously
called. “Like master, like man,” I thought, and rode on, my inquiry not
having been even answered.

I met a negro boy on the road, who told me it was about two miles
to the next house, but he did not reckon that I would get in there.
“How far to the next house beyond that?” “About four miles, sir, and
I reckon you can get in there, master; I’ve heerd they did take in
travellers to that place.”

Soon after this it began to rain and grow dark; so dark that I could
not keep the road, for soon finding Belshazzar in difficulty, I got off
and discovered that we were following up the dry bed of a small stream.
In trying to get back I probably crossed the road, as I did not find
it again, and wandered cautiously among trees for nearly an hour, at
length coming to open country and a fence. Keeping this in sight, I
rode on until I found a gate, entering at which, I followed a nearly
straight and tolerable good road full an hour, as it seemed to me, at
last coming to a large negro “settlement.”

I passed through it to the end of the rows, where was a cabin larger
than the rest, facing on the space between the two lines of huts. A
shout brought out the overseer. I begged for a night’s lodging; he was
silent; I said that I had travelled far, was much fatigued and hungry;
my horse was nearly knocked up, and I was a stranger in the country; I
had lost my road, and only by good fortune had found my way here. At
length, as I continued urging my need, he said—

“Well, I suppose you must stop. Ho, Byron! Here, Byron, take this man’s
horse, and put him in _my_ stable. ’Light, sir, and come in.”

Within I found his wife, a young woman, showily dressed—a caricature
of the fashions of the day. Apparently, they had both been making a
visit to neighbours, and but just come home. I was not received kindly,
but at the request of her husband she brought out and set before me
some cold corn-bread and fat bacon.

Before I had finished eating my supper, however, they both quite
changed their manner, and the woman apologized for not having made
coffee. The cook had gone to bed and the fire was out, she said. She
presently ordered Byron, as he brought my saddle in, to get some
“light-wood” and make a fire; said she was afraid I had made a poor
supper, and set a chair by the fire-place for me as I drew away from
the table.

I plied the man with inquiries about his business, got him interested
in points of difference between Northern and Southern agriculture, and
soon had him in quite a sociable and communicative humour. He gave me
much overseer’s lore about cotton culture, nigger and cattle maladies,
the right way to keep sweet potatoes, etc.; and when I proposed to ride
over the plantation with him in the morning, he said he “would be very
thankful for my company.”

I think they gave up their own bed to me, for it was double, and
had been slept in since the sheets were last changed; the room was
garnished with pistols and other arms and ammunition, rolls of
negro-cloth, shoes and hats, handcuffs, a large medicine chest, and
several books on medical and surgical subjects and farriery; while
articles of both men’s and women’s wearing apparel hung against the
walls, which were also decorated with some large patent-medicine
posters. One of them is characteristic of the place and the times.[18]

We had a good breakfast in the morning, and immediately afterward
mounted and rode to a very large cotton-field, where the whole
field-force of the plantation was engaged.

It was a first-rate plantation. On the highest ground stood a large and
handsome mansion, but it had not been occupied for several years, and
it was more than two years since the overseer had seen the owner. He
lived several hundred miles away, and the overseer would not believe
that I did not know him, for he was a rich man and an honourable, and
had several times been where I came from—New York.

The whole plantation, including the swamp land around it, and owned
with it, covered several square miles. It was four miles from the
settlement to the nearest neighbour’s house. There were between
thirteen and fourteen hundred acres under cultivation with cotton,
corn, and other hoed crops, and two hundred hogs running at large in
the swamp. It was the intention that corn and pork enough should be
raised to keep the slaves and cattle. This year, however, it has been
found necessary to purchase largely, and such was probably usually the
case,[19] though the overseer intimated the owner had been displeased,
and he “did not mean to be caught so bad again.”

There were 135 slaves, big and little, of which 67 went to field
regularly—equal, the overseer thought, to fully 60 prime hands. Besides
these, there were 3 mechanics (blacksmith, carpenter, and wheelwright),
2 seamstresses, 1 cook, 1 stable servant, 1 cattle-tender, 1
hog-tender, 1 teamster, 1 house servant (overseer’s cook), and one
midwife and nurse. These were all first-class hands; most of them would
be worth more, if they were for sale, the overseer said, than the best
field-hands. There was also a driver of the hoe-gang who did not labour
personally, and a foreman of the plough-gang. These two acted as petty
officers in the field, and alternately in the quarters.

There was a nursery for sucklings at the quarters, and twenty women
at this time who left their work four times each day, for half an
hour, to nurse their young ones. These women, the overseer counted
as half-hands—that is, expected to do half the day’s work of a prime
field-hand in ordinary condition.

He had just sold a bad runaway to go to Texas, he happened to remark.
He was whipping the fellow, when he turned and tried to stab him—then
broke from him and ran away. He had him caught almost immediately with
the dogs. After catching him, he kept him in irons till he had a chance
to sell him. His niggers did not very often run away, he said, because
they had found that he was almost sure to catch them. As soon as he saw
that one was gone he put the dogs on, and if rain had not just fallen,
they would soon find him. Sometimes they did manage to outwit the dogs,
but then they almost always kept in the neighbourhood, because they did
not like to go where they could not sometimes get back and see their
families, and he would soon get wind of where they had been; they would
come round their quarters to see their families and to get food, and
as soon as he knew it, he would find their tracks and put the dogs on
again. Two months was the longest time any of them ever kept out. He
had dogs trained on purpose to run after niggers, and never let out for
anything else.

We found in the field thirty ploughs, moving together, turning the
earth from the cotton plants, and from thirty to forty hoers, the
latter mainly women, with a black driver walking about among them with
a whip, which he often cracked at them, sometimes allowing the lash to
fall lightly upon their shoulders. He was constantly urging them also
with his voice. All worked very steadily, and though the presence of a
stranger on the plantation must have been a most unusual occurrence,
I saw none raise or turn their heads to look at me. Each gang was
attended by a “water-toter,” that of the hoe-gang being a straight,
sprightly, plump little black girl, whose picture, as she stood
balancing the bucket upon her head, shading her bright eyes with one
hand, and holding out a calabash with the other to maintain her poise,
would have been a worthy study for Murillo.

I asked at what time they began to work in the morning. “Well,” said
the overseer, “I do better by my niggers than most. I keep ’em right
smart at their work while they do work, but I generally knock ’em off
at 8 o’clock in the morning, Saturdays, and give ’em all the rest of
the day to themselves, and I always gives ’em Sundays, the whole day.
Pickin’ time, and when the crap’s bad in grass, I sometimes keep ’em to
it till about sunset, Saturdays, but I never work ’em Sundays.”

“How early do you start them out in the morning, usually?”

“Well, I don’t never start my niggers ’fore daylight, ’less ’tis in
pickin’ time, then maybe I get ’em out a quarter of an hour before. But
I keep ’em right smart to work through the day.” He showed an evident
pride in the vigilance of his driver, and called my attention to the
large area of ground already hoed over that morning; well hoed, too, as
he said.

“At what time do they eat?” I asked. They ate “their snacks” in their
cabins, he said, before they came out in the morning (that is before
daylight—the sun rising at this time at a little before five, and the
day dawning, probably, an hour earlier); then at 12 o’clock their
dinner was brought to them in a cart—one cart for the plough-gang and
one for the hoe-gang. The hoe-gang ate its dinner in the field, and
only stopped work long enough to eat it. The plough-gang drove its
teams to the “weather houses”—open sheds erected for the purpose in
different parts of the plantation, under which were cisterns filled
with rain water, from which the water-toters carried drink to those at
work. The mules were fed with as much oats (in straw), corn and fodder
as they would eat in two hours; this forage having been brought to the
weather houses by another cart. The ploughmen had nothing to do but eat
their dinner in all this time. All worked as late as they could see to
work well, and had no more food nor rest until they returned to their
cabins.[20] At half-past nine o’clock the drivers, each on an alternate
night, blew a horn, and at ten visited every cabin to see that its
occupants were at rest, and not lurking about and spending their
strength in fooleries, and that the fires were safe—a very unusual
precaution; the negroes are generally at liberty after their day’s work
is done till they are called in the morning. When washing and patching
were done, wood hauled and cut for the fires, corn ground, etc., I did
not learn: probably all chores not of daily necessity were reserved for
Saturday. Custom varies in this respect. In general, with regard to
fuel for the cabins, the negroes are left to look out for themselves,
and they often have to go to “the swamp” for it, or at least, if it has
been hauled, to cut it to a convenient size, after their day’s work is
done. The allowance of food was a peck of corn and four pounds of pork
per week, each. When they could not get “greens” (any vegetables) he
generally gave them five pounds of pork. They had gardens, and raised
a good deal for themselves; they also had fowls, and usually plenty of
eggs. He added, “the man who owns this plantation does more for his
niggers than any other man I know. Every Christmas he sends me up a
thousand or fifteen hundred dollars’ [equal to eight or ten dollars
each] worth of molasses and coffee, and tobacco, and calico, and Sunday
tricks for ’em. Every family on this plantation gets a barrel of
molasses at Christmas.”[21]

Beside which, the overseer added, they are able, if they choose, to
buy certain comforts for themselves—tobacco for instance—with money
earned by Saturday and Sunday work. Some of them went into the swamps
on Sunday, and made boards (which means slabs worked out with no other
instrument than an axe). One man sold last year as much as fifty
dollars’ worth.

Finding myself nearer the outer gate than the “quarters,” when at
length my curiosity was satisfied, I did not return to the house.
After getting a clear direction how to find my way back to the road
I had been upon the previous day, I said to the overseer, with some
hesitation, “You will allow me to pay you for the trouble I have given
you?” He looked a little disconcerted by my putting the question in
this way, but answered in a matter-of-course tone, “It will be a dollar
and a quarter, sir.”

This was the only large plantation I had an opportunity of seeing at
all closely, over which I was not chiefly conducted by an educated
gentleman and slave owner, by whose habitual impressions and sentiments
my own were probably somewhat influenced. From what I saw in passing,
and from what I heard by chance of others, I suppose it to have been a
very favourable specimen of those plantations on which the owners do
not reside. A merchant of the vicinity recently in New York tells me
that he supposes it to be a fair enough example of plantations of its
class. There is nothing remarkable in its management, so far as he had
heard. When I asked about the molasses and Christmas presents, he said
he reckoned the overseer must have rather stretched that part of his
story, but the owner was a very good man. A magistrate of the district,
who had often been on the plantation, said in answer to an inquiry from
me, that the negroes were very well treated upon it, though he did not
think they were extraordinarily so. His comparison was with plantations
in general.[22] He also spoke well of the overseer. He had been a long
time on this plantation—I think he said ever since it had begun to be
cultivated. This is very rare; it was the only case I met with in which
an overseer had kept the same place ten years, and it was a strong
evidence of his comparative excellence, that his employer had been so
long satisfied with him. Perhaps it was a stronger evidence that the
owner of the negroes was a man of good temper, systematic and thorough
in the management of his property.[23]

The condition of the fences, of the mules and tools, and tillage, which
would have been considered admirable in the best farming district of
New York—the dress of the negroes and the neatness and spaciousness of
their “quarters,” which were superior to those of most of the better
class of plantations on which the owners reside, all bore testimony to
a very unusually prudent and provident policy.

I made no special inquiries about the advantages for education or
means of religious instruction provided for the slaves. As there
seems to be much public desire for definite information upon that
point, I regret that I did not. I did not need to put questions to
the overseer to satisfy my own mind, however. It was obvious that all
natural incitements to self-advancement had been studiously removed
or obstructed, in subordination to the general purpose of making the
plantation profitable. Regarding only the balance-sheet of the owner’s
ledger, it was admirable management. I am sorry to have to confess to
an impression that it is rare, where this is the uppermost object of
the cotton-planter, that an equally frugal economy is maintained; and
as the general character of the district along the Mississippi, which
is especially noticeable for the number of large and very productive
plantations which it contains, has now been sufficiently illustrated,
I will here present certain observations which I wish to make upon
the peculiar aspect of slavery in that and other districts where its
profits to the owners of slaves are most apparent.



CHAPTER V.

SLAVERY IN ITS PROPERTY ASPECT—MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION OF THE
SLAVES, ETC.


In a hilly part of Alabama, fifty miles north of the principal
cotton-growing districts of that State, I happened to have a tradesman
of the vicinity for a travelling companion, when, in passing an
unusually large cluster of negro cabins, he called my attention to
a rugged range of hills behind them which, he said, was a favourite
lurking-ground for runaway negroes. It afforded them numerous coverts
for concealment during the day, and at night the slaves of the
plantation we were passing would help them to find the necessaries of
existence. He had seen folks who had come here to look after niggers
from plantations two hundred miles to the south, ward. “I suppose,”
said he, “’t would seem kind o’ barbarous to you to see a pack of
hounds after a human being?”

“Yes, it would.”

“Some fellows take as much delight in it as in runnin’ a fox. Always
seemed to me a kind o’ barbarous sport.” [A pause.] “It’s necessary,
though.”

“I suppose it is. Slavery is a custom of society which has come to us
from a barbarous people, and, naturally, barbarous practices have to be
employed to maintain it.”

“Yes, I s’pose that’s so. But niggers is generally pretty well
treated, considering. Some people work their niggers too hard, that’s
a fact. I know a man at ——; he’s a merchant there, and I have had
dealings with him; he’s got three plantations, and he puts the hardest
overseers he can get on them. He’s all the time a’ buying niggers,
and they say around there he works ’em to death. On these small
plantations, niggers ain’t very often whipped bad; but on them big
plantations, they’ve got to use ’em hard to keep any sort of control
over ’em. The overseers have to always go about armed; their life
wouldn’t be safe, if they didn’t. As ’tis, they very often get cut
pretty bad.” (Cutting is knifing; it may be stabbing, in south-western
parlance).

He went on to describe what he had seen on some large plantations which
he had visited for business purposes—indications, as he thought, in the
appearance of “the people,” that they were being “worked to death.”
“These rich men,” he said, “are always bidding for the overseer who
will make the most cotton; and a great many of the overseers didn’t
care for anything but to be able to say they’ve made so many bales in
a year. If they make plenty of cotton, the owners never ask how many
niggers they kill.”

I suggested that this did not seem quite credible; a negro was a
valuable piece of property. It would be foolish to use him in such a
way.

“Seems they don’t think so,” he answered. “They are always bragging—you
must have heard them—how many bales their overseer has made, or how
many their plantation has made to a hand. They never think of anything
else. You see, if a man did like to have his niggers taken care of, he
couldn’t bear to be always hearing that all the plantations round had
beat his. He’d think the fault was in his overseer. The fellow who can
make the most cotton always gets paid the best.”

Overseers’ wages were ordinarily from $200 to $600, but a real driving
overseer would very often get $1,000. Sometimes they’d get $1,200 or
$1,500. He heard of $2,000 being paid one fellow. A determined and
perfectly relentless man—I can’t recall his exact words, which were
very expressive—a real devil of an overseer, would get almost any wages
he’d ask; because, when it was told round that such a man had made so
many bales to the hand, everybody would be trying to get him.

The man who talked in this way was a native Alabamian, ignorant, but
apparently of more than ordinarily reflective habits, and he had been
so situated as to have unusually good opportunities for observation.
In character, if not in detail, I must say that his information was
entirely in accordance with the opinions I should have been led to form
from the conversations I heard by chance, from time to time, in the
richest cotton districts. That his statements as to the bad management
of large plantations, in respect to the waste of negro property, were
not much exaggerated, I find frequent evidence in southern agricultural
journals. The following is an extract from one of a series of essays
published in _The Cotton Planter_, the chief object of which is to
persuade planters that they are under no necessity to employ slaves
exclusively in the production of cotton. The writer, Mr. M. W.
Phillips, is a well-known, intelligent, and benevolent planter, who
resides constantly on his estate, near Jackson, Mississippi:—

     “I have known many in the rich planting portion of Mississippi
     especially, and others elsewhere, who, acting on the policy of
     the boy in the fable, who ‘killed the goose for the golden egg,’
     accumulated property, yet among those who have relied solely on
     their product in land and negroes, I doubt if this be the true
     policy of plantation economy. With the former everything has to
     bend, give way to large crops of cotton, land has to be cultivated
     wet or dry, negroes to work, cold or hot. Large crops planted, and
     they must be cultivated, or done so after a manner. When disease
     comes about, as, for instance, cholera, pneumonia, flux, and
     other violent diseases, these are more subject, it seemeth to me,
     than others, or even if not, there is less vitality to work on,
     and, therefore, in like situations and similar in severity, they
     must sink with more certainty; or even should the animal economy
     rally under all these trials, the neglect consequent upon this
     ‘cut and cover’ policy must result in greater mortality. Another
     objection, not one-fourth of the children born are raised, and
     perhaps not over two-thirds are born on the place, which, under a
     different policy, might be expected. And this is not all: hands,
     and teams, and land must wear out sooner; admitting this to be
     only one year sooner in twenty years, or that lands and negroes
     are less productive at forty than at forty-two, we see a heavy
     loss. Is this not so? I am told of negroes not over thirty-five
     to forty-five, who look older than others at forty-five to
     fifty-five. I know a man now, not short of sixty, who might
     readily be taken for forty-five; another on the same place full
     fifty (for I have known both for twenty-eight years, and the last
     one for thirty-two years), who could be sold for thirty-five,
     and these negroes are very leniently dealt with. Others, many
     others, I know and have known twenty-five to thirty years, of whom
     I can speak of as above. As to rearing children, I can point to
     equally as strong cases; ay, men who are, ‘as it were,’ of one
     family, differing as much as four and eight bales in cropping, and
     equally as much in raising young negroes. The one scarcely paying
     expenses by his crop, yet in the past twenty-five years raising
     over seventy-five to a hundred negroes, the other buying more than
     raised, and yet not as many as the first.

     “I regard the ‘just medium’ to be the correct point. Labour is
     conducive to health; a healthy woman will rear most children. I
     favour good and fair work, yet not overworked so as to tax the
     animal economy, that the woman cannot rear healthy children, nor
     should the father be over-wrought, that his vital powers be at all
     infringed upon.

     “If the policy be adopted, to make an improvement in land visible,
     to raise the greatest number of healthy children, to make an
     abundance of provision, to rear a portion at least of work horses,
     rely on it we will soon find by our tax list that our country is
     improving. * * *

     “Brethren of the South, we must change our policy. _Overseers are
     not interested in raising children, or meat, in improving land, or
     improving productive qualities of seed, or animals. Many of them
     do not care whether property has depreciated or improved, so they
     have made a crop [of cotton] to boast of._

     “As to myself, I care not who has the credit of making crops at
     Log Hall; and I would prefer that an overseer, who has been one
     of my family for a year or two, or more, should be benefited;
     but this thing is to be known and well understood. I plant such
     fields in such crops as I see fit; I plant acres in corn, cotton,
     oats, potatoes, etc., as I select, and the general policy of
     rest, cultivation, etc., must be preserved which I lay down. A
     self-willed overseer may fraudulently change somewhat in the
     latter, by not carrying out orders—that I cannot help. What I have
     written, I have written, and think I can substantiate.”

From the _Southern Agriculturist_, vol. iv., page 317:—

     “OVERSEERS.

     * * * “When they seek a place, they rest their claims entirely
     on the number of bags they have heretofore made to the hand, and
     generally the employer unfortunately recognizes the justice of
     such claims.

     “No wonder, then, that the overseer desires to have entire control
     of the plantation. No wonder he opposes all experiments, or, if
     they are persisted in, neglects them; _presses everything at the
     end of the lash; pays no attention to the sick, except to keep
     them in the field as long as possible; and drives them out again
     at the first moment, and forces sucklers and breeders to the
     utmost. He has no other interest than to make a big cotton crop._
     And if this does not please you, and induce you to increase his
     wages, he knows men it will please, and secure him a situation
     with.”

From the Columbia _South Carolinian_:—

     * * * “Planters may be divided into two great classes, viz., those
     who attend to their business, and those who do not. And this
     creates corresponding classes of overseers. The planter who does
     not manage his own business must, of course, surrender everything
     into the hands of his overseer. Such a planter usually rates the
     merits of the overseer exactly in proportion to the number of bags
     of cotton he makes, and of course the overseer cares for nothing
     but to make a large crop. To him it is of no consequence that
     the old hands are worked down, or the young ones overstrained;
     that the breeding women miscarry, and the sucklers lose their
     children; that the mules are broken down, the plantation tools
     destroyed, the stock neglected, and the lands ruined: _so that
     he has the requisite number of cotton bags, all is overlooked_;
     he is re-employed at an advanced salary, and his reputation
     increased. Everybody knows that by such a course, a crop may be
     increased by the most inferior overseer, in any given year, unless
     his predecessors have so entirely exhausted the resources of the
     plantation, that there is no part of the capital left which can
     be wrought up into current income. * * * Having once had the
     sole management of a plantation, and imbibed the idea that the
     only test of good planting is to make a large crop of cotton, an
     overseer becomes worthless. He will no longer obey orders; he
     will not stoop to details; he scorns all improvements, and _will
     not_ adopt any other plan of planting than simply to work lands,
     negroes, and mules to the top of their bent, which necessarily
     proves fatal to every employer who will allow it.

     “It seems scarcely credible, that any man owning a plantation
     will so abandon it and his people on it entirely to a hireling, no
     matter what his confidence in him is. Yet there are numbers who
     do it habitually; and I have even known overseers to stipulate
     that their employers should not give any order, nor interfere
     in any way with their management of the plantation. There are
     also some proprietors of considerable property and pretension to
     being planters, who give their overseer a proportion of the crop
     for his wages; thus bribing him by the strongest inducements of
     self-interest, to overstrain and work down everything committed to
     his charge.

     “No planter, who attends to his own business, can dispense with
     agents and sub-agents. It is impossible, on a plantation of any
     size, for the proprietor to attend to all the details, many of
     which are irksome and laborious, and he requires more intelligence
     to assist him than slaves usually possess. To him, therefore, a
     good overseer is a blessing. But an overseer who would answer the
     views of such a planter is most difficult to find. The men engaged
     in that occupation who combine the most intelligence, industry,
     and character, are allured into the service of those who place all
     power in their hands, and are ultimately spoiled.”

An English traveller writes to the London _Daily News_ from Mississippi
(1857):—

     “On crossing the Big Block river, I left the sandhills and began
     to find myself in the rich loam of the valley of the Mississippi.
     The plantations became larger, the clearings more numerous and
     extensive, and the roads less hilly, but worse. Along the Yazoo
     river one meets with some of the richest soil in the world, and
     some of the largest crops of cotton in the Union. My first night
     in that region was passed at the house of a planter who worked
     but few hands, was a fast friend of slavery, and yet drew for my
     benefit one of the most mournful pictures of a slave’s life I have
     ever met with. He said, and I believe truly, that the negroes of
     small planters are, on the whole, well treated, or at least as
     well as the owners can afford to treat them. Their master not
     unfrequently works side by side with them in the fields. * * *
     But on the large plantations, where the business is carried on by
     an overseer, and everything is conducted with military strictness
     and discipline, he described matters as being widely different.
     _The future of the overseer depends altogether on the quantity of
     cotton he is able to make up for the market._ Whether the owner be
     resident or non-resident, if the plantation be large, and a great
     number of hands be employed upon it, the overseer gets credit
     for a large crop, and blame for a small one. His professional
     reputation depends in a great measure upon the number of bales or
     hogsheads he is able to produce, and neither his education nor
     his habits are such as to render it likely that he would allow
     any consideration for the negroes to stand in the way of his
     advancing it. His interest is to get as much work out of them as
     they can possibly perform. His skill consists in knowing exactly
     how hard they may be driven without incapacitating them for future
     exertion. The larger the plantation the less chance there is, of
     course, of the owner’s softening the rigour of the overseer, or
     the sternness of discipline by personal interference. So, as Mr.
     H—— said, a vast mass of the slaves pass their lives, from the
     moment they are able to go afield in the picking season till they
     drop worn out into the grave, in incessant labour, in all sorts
     of weather, at all seasons of the year, without any other change
     or relaxation than is furnished by sickness, without the smallest
     hope of any improvement either in their condition, in their food,
     or in their clothing, which are of the plainest and coarsest
     kind, and indebted solely to the forbearance or good temper of
     the overseer for exemption from terrible physical suffering. They
     are rung to bed at nine o’clock, almost immediately after bolting
     the food which they often have to cook after coming home from
     their day’s labour, and are rung out of bed at four or five in the
     morning. The interval is one long round of toil. Life has no sunny
     spots for them. Their only refuge or consolation in this world is
     in their own stupidity and grossness. The nearer they are to the
     beast, the happier they are likely to be. Any mental or moral rise
     is nearly sure to bring unhappiness with it.”

The same gentleman writes from Columbus:—

     “One gets better glimpses of the real condition of the negroes
     from conversations one happens to overhear than from what is told
     to one’s-self—above all, when one is known to be a stranger, and
     particularly an Englishman. The cool way in which you hear the
     hanging of niggers, the shooting of niggers, and the necessity for
     severe discipline among niggers talked of in bar-rooms, speaks
     volumes as to the exact state of the case. A negro was shot when
     running away, near Greensboro’, a small town on my road, the day
     before I passed through, by a man who had received instructions
     from the owner to take him alive, and shoot him if he resisted. I
     heard the subject discussed by some ‘loafers’ in the bar, while
     getting my horse fed, and I found, to my no small—I do not know
     whether to say horror or amusement—that the point in dispute
     was not the degree of moral guilt incurred by the murderer, but
     the degree of loss and damage for which he had rendered himself
     liable to the owner of the slave in departing from the letter of
     his commission. One of the group summed up the arguments on both
     sides, by exclaiming, ‘Well, this shootin’ of niggers should be
     put a stop to, that’s a fact.’ The obvious inference to be deduced
     from this observation was, that ‘nigger shootin’’ was a slight
     contravention of police regulations—a little of which might be
     winked at, but which, in this locality, had been carried to such
     an extent as to call for the interference of the law.”

I do not think that I have ever seen the sudden death of a negro
noticed in a Southern newspaper, or heard it referred to in
conversation, that the loss of property, rather than the extinction of
life, was not the evident occasion of interest. Turning over several
Southern papers at this moment, I fall at once upon these examples:—

     “We are informed that a negro man, the property of Mr. William
     Mays, of this city, was killed last Thursday by a youth, the son
     of Mr. William Payne, of Campbell county. The following are the
     circumstances, as we have received them. Two sons of Mr. Payne
     were shooting pigeons on the plantation of Mr. Mays, about twenty
     miles from this place, and went to the tobacco-house, where the
     overseer and hands were housing tobacco; one of the boys had a
     string of pigeons and the other had none. On reaching the house,
     the negro who was killed asked the boy who had no pigeons, ‘where
     his were.’ He replied that he killed none, but could kill him (the
     negro), and raised his gun and fired. The load took effect in the
     head, and caused death in a few hours. _The negro was a valuable
     one. Mr. Mays had refused $1,200 for him._”—_Lynchburg Virginian._

     “_A valuable negro boy, the property of_ W. A. Phipps, living in
     the upper end of this county, was accidentally drowned in the
     Holston river a few days ago.”—_Rogersville Times._

     “Mr. Tilghman Cobb’s barn at Bedford, Va., was set fire to by
     lightning on Friday, the 11th, and consumed. Two negroes and three
     horses perished in the flames.”—_New Orleans Daily Crescent._

I have repeated these accounts, not to convey to the reader’s mind
the impression that slaves are frequently shot by their masters,
which would be, no doubt, a mistaken inference, but to show in what
manner I was made to feel, as I was very strongly in my journey, that
what we call the sacredness of human life, together with a great
range of kindred instincts, scarcely attaches at all, with most
white men, to the slaves, and also in order to justify the following
observation:—that I found the lives and the comfort of negroes, in the
rich cotton-planting districts especially, habitually regarded, by all
classes, much more from a purely pecuniary point of view than I had
ever before supposed they could be; and yet that, as property, negro
life and negro vigour were generally much less carefully economized
than I had always before imagined them to be.

As I became familiar with the circumstances, I saw reasons for this,
which, in looking from a distance, or through the eyes of travellers, I
had not been able adequately to appreciate. I will endeavour to state
them:—

It is difficult to handle simply as property, a creature possessing
human passions and human feelings, however debased and torpid the
condition of that creature may be; while, on the other hand, the
absolute necessity of dealing with property as a thing, greatly
embarrassed a man in any attempt to treat it as a person. And it is the
natural result of this complicated state of things, that the system of
slave-management is irregular, ambiguous, and contradictory; that it is
never either consistently humane or consistently economical.

As a general rule, the larger the body of negroes on a plantation or
estate, the more completely are they treated as mere property, and in
accordance with a policy calculated to insure the largest pecuniary
returns. Hence, in part, the greater proportionate profit of such
plantations, and the tendency which everywhere prevails in the planting
districts to the absorption of small, and the augmentation of large
estates. It may be true, that among the wealthier slave-owners there is
oftener a humane disposition, a better judgment, and a greater ability
to deal with their dependents indulgently and bountifully, but the
effects of this disposition are chiefly felt, even on those plantations
where the proprietor resides permanently, among the slaves employed
about the house and stables, and perhaps a few old favourites in the
quarters. It is more than balanced by the difficulty of acquiring
a personal interest in the units of a large body of slaves, and an
acquaintance with the individual characteristics of each. The treatment
of the mass must be reduced to a system, the ruling idea of which will
be, to enable one man to force into the same channel of labour the
muscles of a large number of men of various and often conflicting wills.

The chief difficulty is to overcome their great aversion to labour.
They have no objection to eating, drinking, and resting, when
necessary, and no general disinclination to receive instruction. If a
man own many slaves, therefore, the faculty which he values highest,
and pays most for, in an overseer, is that of making them work. Any
fool could see that they were properly supplied with food, clothing,
rest, and religious instruction.

The labourers we see in towns, at work on railroads and steamboats,
about stations and landings; the menials of our houses and hotels, are
less respectable, moral, and intelligent than the great majority of the
whole labouring class of the North. The traveller at the South has to
learn that there the reverse is the case to a degree which can hardly
be sufficiently estimated. I have been obliged to think that many
amiable travellers who have received impressions with regard to the
condition of the slaves very different from mine, have failed to make a
sufficient allowance for this. The rank-and-file plantation negroes are
not to be readily made acquaintance with by chance or through letters
of introduction.

I have described in detail, in former chapters, two large plantations,
which were much the best in respect to the happiness of the negroes, of
all that I saw in the South. I am now about to describe what I judged
to be the most profitable estate that I visited. In saying this I do
not compare it with others noticed in this chapter, my observations
of which were too superficial to warrant a comparison. It was
situated upon a tributary of the Mississippi, and accessible only by
occasional steamboats; even this mode of communication being frequently
interrupted at low stages of the rivers. The slaves upon it formed
about one twentieth of the whole population of the county, in which
the blacks considerably outnumber the whites. At the time of my visit,
the owner was sojourning upon it, with his family and several invited
guests, but his usual residence was upon a small plantation, of little
productive value, situated in a neighbourhood somewhat noted for the
luxury and hospitality of its citizens, and having a daily mail, and
direct railroad and telegraphic communication with New York. This was,
if I am not mistaken, his second visit in five years.

The property consisted of four adjoining plantations, each with its
own negro-cabins, stables, and overseer, and each worked to a great
extent independently of the others, but all contributing their crop to
one gin-house and warehouse, and all under the general superintendence
of a bailiff or manager, who constantly resided upon the estate, and
in the absence of the owner, had vice-regal power over the overseers,
controlling, so far as he thought fit, the economy of all the
plantations.

The manager was himself a gentleman of good education, generous and
poetic in temperament, and possessing a capacity for the enjoyment of
nature and a happiness in the bucolic life, unfortunately rare with
Americans. I found him a delightful companion, and I have known no
man with whose natural tastes and feelings I have felt, on so short
acquaintance, a more hearty sympathy. The gang of toiling negroes to
him, however, was as essential an element of the poetry of nature as
flocks of peaceful sheep and herds of lowing kine, and he would no more
appreciate the aspect in which an Abolitionist would see them, than
would Virgil have honoured the feelings of a vegetarian, sighing at the
sight of flocks and herds destined to feed the depraved appetite of the
carnivorous savage of modern civilization. The overseers were superior
to most of their class, and, with one exception, frank, honest,
temperate, and industrious, but their feelings toward negroes were such
as naturally result from their occupation. They were all married, and
lived with their families, each in a cabin or cottage, in the hamlet
of the slaves of which he had especial charge. Their wages varied from
$500 to $1,000 a year each.

These five men, each living more than a mile distant from either
of the others, were the only white men on the estate, and the only
others within several miles of them were a few skulking vagabonds.
Of course, to secure their own personal safety and to efficiently
direct the labour of such a large number of ignorant, indolent, and
vicious negroes, rules, or rather habits and customs, of discipline,
were necessary, which would in particular cases be liable to operate
unjustly and cruelly. It is apparent, also, that, as the testimony of
negroes against them would not be received as evidence in court, that
there was very little probability that any excessive severity would
be restrained by fear of the law. A provision of the law intended to
secure a certain privilege to slaves, was indeed disregarded under
my own observation, and such infraction of the law was confessedly
customary with one of the overseers, and was permitted by the manager,
for the reason that it seemed to him to be, in a certain degree,
justifiable and expedient under the circumstances, and because he did
not like to interfere unnecessarily in such matters.

In the main, the negroes appeared to be well taken care of and
abundantly supplied with the necessaries of vigorous physical
existence. A large part of them lived in commodious and well-built
cottages, with broad galleries in front, so that each family of five
had two rooms on the lower floor, and a loft. The remainder lived in
log huts, small and mean in appearance, but those of their overseers
were little better, and preparations were being made to replace all
of these by neat boarded cottages. Each family had a fowl-house and
hog-sty (constructed by the negroes themselves), and kept fowls and
swine, feeding the latter during the summer on weeds and fattening
them in the autumn on corn, _stolen_ (this was mentioned to me by
the overseers as if it were a matter of course) from their master’s
corn-fields. I several times saw gangs of them eating the dinner which
they had brought, each man for himself, to the field, and observed that
they generally had plenty, often more than they could eat, of bacon,
corn-bread, and molasses. The allowance of food is weighed and measured
under the eye of the manager by the drivers, and distributed to the
head of each family weekly: consisting of—for each person, 3 pounds of
pork, 1 peck of meal; and from January to July, 1 quart of molasses.
Monthly, in addition, 1 pound tobacco, and 4 pints salt. No drink is
ever served but water, except after unusual exposure, or to ditchers
working in water, who get a glass of whisky at night. All hands cook
for themselves after work at night, or whenever they please between
nightfall and daybreak, each family in its own cabin. Each family has
a garden, the products of which, together with eggs, fowls, and bacon,
they frequently sell, or use in addition to their regular allowance
of food. Most of the families buy a barrel of flour every year. The
manager endeavours to encourage this practice; and that they may spend
their money for flour instead of liquor, he furnishes it to them at
rather less than what it costs him at wholesale. There are many poor
whites within a few miles who will always sell liquor to the negroes,
and encourage them to steal, to obtain the means to buy it of them.
These poor whites are always spoken of with anger by the overseers, and
they each have a standing offer of much more than the intrinsic value
of their land, from the manager, to induce them to move away.

The negroes also obtain a good deal of game. They set traps for
raccoons, rabbits, and turkeys; and I once heard the stock-tender
complaining that he had detected one of the vagabond whites stealing
a turkey which had been caught in his pen. I several times partook of
game, while on the plantation, that had been purchased of the negroes.
The stock-tender, an old negro, whose business it was to ride about
in the woods and keep an eye on the stock cattle that were pastured
in them, and who was thus likely to know where the deer ran, had an
ingenious way of supplying himself with venison. He lashed a scythe
blade or butcher’s knife to the end of a pole so that it formed a
lance; this he set near a fence or fallen tree which obstructed a path
in which the deer habitually ran, and the deer in leaping over the
obstacle would leap directly on the knife. In this manner he had killed
two deer the week before my visit.

The manager sent to him for some of this venison for his own use, and
justified himself to me for not paying for it on the ground that the
stock-tender had undoubtedly taken time which really belonged to his
owner to set his spear. Game taken by the field-hands was not looked
upon in the same light, because it must have been got at night when
they were excused from labour for their owner.

The first morning I was on the estate, while at breakfast with the
manager, an old negro woman came into the room and said to him, “Dat
gal’s bin bleedin’ agin’ dis mornin’.”

“How much did she bleed?”

“About a pint, sir.”

“Very well; I’ll call and see her after breakfast.”

“I come up for some sugar of lead, masser; I gin her some powdered alum
’fore I come away.”

“Very well; you can have some.”

After breakfast the manager invited me to ride with him on his usual
daily round of inspection through the plantations.

On reaching the nearest “quarters,” we stopped at a house, a little
larger than the ordinary cabins, which was called the loom-house, in
which a dozen negroes were at work making shoes, and manufacturing
coarse cotton stuff for negro clothing. One of the hands so employed
was insane, and most of the others were cripples, invalids with chronic
complaints, or unfitted by age, or some infirmity, for field-work.

From this we went to one of the cabins, where we found the sick woman
who had been bleeding at the lungs, with the old nurse in attendance
upon her. The manager examined and prescribed for her in a kind manner.
When we came out he asked the nurse if any one else was sick.

“Oney dat woman Carline.”

“What do you think is the matter with her?”

“Well, I don’t tink dere’s anyting de matter wid her, masser; I mus’
answer you for true, I don’t tink anyting de matter wid her, oney she’s
a little sore from dat whippin’ she got.”

We went to another cabin and entered a room where a woman lay on a bed,
groaning. It was a dingy, comfortless room, but a musquito bar, much
patched and very dirty, covered the bed. The manager asked the woman
several times what was the matter, but could get no distinct reply. She
appeared to be suffering great pain. The manager felt her pulse and
looked at her tongue, and after making a few more inquiries, to which
no intelligible reply was given, told her he did not believe she was
ill at all. At this the woman’s groans redoubled. “I have heard of your
tricks,” continued the manager; “you had a chill when I came to see you
yesterday morning; you had a chill when the mistress came here, and
you had a chill when the master came. I never knew a chill to last the
whole day. So you’ll just get up now and go to the field, and if you
don’t work smart, you’ll get a dressing; do you hear?”

We then left. The manager said that he rarely—almost never—had
occasion to employ a physician for the people. Never for accouchements;
the women, from their labour in the field, were not subject to the
difficulty, danger, and pain which attended women of the better classes
in giving birth to their offspring. (I do not suppose that there was a
physician within a day’s journey of the plantations.)

Near the first quarters we visited there was a large blacksmith’s
and wheelwright’s shop, in which a number of mechanics were at work.
Most of them, as we rode up, were eating their breakfast, which they
warmed at their fires. Within and around the shop there were some fifty
ploughs which they were putting in order. The manager inspected the
work, found some of it faulty, sharply reprimanded the workmen for not
getting on faster, and threatened one of them with a whipping for not
paying closer attention to the directions which had been given him.

The overseer of this plantation rode up while we were at the shop, and
in a free and easy style, reported to the manager how all his hands
were employed. There were so many at this and so many at that, and they
had done so much since yesterday. “There’s that girl, Caroline,” said
the manager; “she’s not sick, and I told her she must go to work; put
her to the hoeing; there’s nothing the matter with her, except she’s
sore with the whipping she got. You must go and get her out.” A woman
passing at the time, the manager told her to go and tell Caroline she
must get up and go to work, or the overseer would come and start her.
She returned in a few minutes, and reported that Caroline said she
could not get up. The overseer and manager rode toward the cabin, but
before they reached it, the girl, who had probably been watching us
from the window, came out and went to the field with her hoe. They
then returned to me and continued their conversation. Just before we
left the overseer, he said, “I think that girl who ran away last week
was in her cabin last night.” The manager told me, as we rode on, that
the people often ran away after they have been whipped, or something
else had happened to make them angry. They hide in the swamp, and come
in to the cabins at night to get food. They seldom remain away more
than a fortnight, and when they come in they are whipped. The woman,
Caroline, he said, had been delivered of a dead child about six weeks
before, and had been complaining and getting rid of work ever since.
She was the laziest woman on the estate. This shamming illness gave him
the most disagreeable duty he had to perform. Negroes were famous for
it. “If it was not for her bad character,” he continued, “I should fear
to make her go to work to-day; but her pulse is steady, and her tongue
perfectly smooth. We have to be sharp with them; if we were not, every
negro on the estate would be a-bed.”

We rode on to where the different gangs of labourers were at work, and
inspected them one after another. I observed, as we were looking at one
of the gangs, that they were very dirty. “Negroes are the filthiest
people in the world,” said the manager; “there are some of them who
would not keep clean twenty-four hours at a time if you gave them
thirty suits a year.” I asked him if there were any rules to maintain
cleanliness. There were not, but sometimes the negroes were told at
night that any one who came into the field the next morning without
being clean would be whipped. This gave no trouble to those who were
habitually clean, while it was in itself a punishment to those who were
not, as they were obliged to spend the night in washing.

They were furnished with two suits of summer, and one of winter
clothing each year. Besides which, most of them got presents of holiday
finery (calico dresses, handkerchiefs, etc.), and purchased more for
themselves, at Christmas. One of the drivers now in the field had on a
uniform coat of an officer of artillery. After the Mexican war, a great
deal of military clothing was sold at auction in New Orleans, and much
of it was bought by the planters at a low price, and given to their
negroes, who were greatly pleased with it.

Each overseer regulated the hours of work on his own plantation. I
saw the negroes at work before sunrise and after sunset. At about
eight o’clock they were allowed to stop for breakfast, and again about
noon, to dine. The length of these rests was at the discretion of the
overseer or drivers, usually, I should say, from half an hour to an
hour. There was no rule.

The number of hands directed by each overseer was considerably over one
hundred. The manager thought it would be better economy to have a white
man over every fifty hands, but the difficulty of obtaining trustworthy
overseers prevented it. Three of those he then had were the best he
had ever known. He described the great majority as being passionate,
careless, inefficient men, generally intemperate, and totally unfitted
for the duties of the position. The best overseers ordinarily, are
young men, the sons of small planters, who take up the business
temporarily, as a means of acquiring a little capital with which to
purchase negroes for themselves.

The ploughs at work, both with single and double mule teams, were
generally held by women, and very well held, too. I watched with some
interest for any indication that their sex unfitted them for the
occupation. Twenty of them were ploughing together, with double teams
and heavy ploughs. They were superintended by a negro man who carried
a whip, which he frequently cracked at them, permitting no dawdling
or delay at the turning; and they twitched their ploughs around on
the head-land, jerking their reins, and yelling to their mules, with
apparent ease, energy, and rapidity. Throughout the South-west the
negroes, as a rule, appear to be worked much harder than in the Eastern
and Northern Slave States. I do not think they accomplish as much
in the same time as agricultural labourers at the North usually do,
but they certainly labour much harder, and more unremittingly. They
are constantly and steadily driven up to their work, and the stupid,
plodding, machine-like manner in which they labour, is painful to
witness. This was especially the case with the hoe-gangs. One of them
numbered nearly two hundred hands (for the force of two plantations was
working together), moving across the field in parallel lines, with a
considerable degree of precision. I repeatedly rode through the lines
at a canter, with other horsemen, often coming upon them suddenly,
without producing the smallest change or interruption in the dogged
action of the labourers, or causing one of them, so far as I could
see, to lift an eye from the ground. I had noticed the same thing with
smaller numbers before, but here, considering that I was a stranger,
and that strangers could but very rarely visit the plantation, it
amazed me very much. I think it told a more painful story than any
I had ever heard, of the cruelty of slavery. It was emphasized by a
tall and powerful negro who walked to and fro in the rear of the line,
frequently cracking his whip, and calling out in the surliest manner,
to one and another, “Shove your hoe, there! shove your hoe!” But I
never saw him strike any one with the whip.

The whip was evidently in constant use, however. There were no rules
on the subject, that I learned; the overseers and drivers punished the
negroes whenever they deemed it necessary, and in such manner, and with
such severity, as they thought fit. “If you don’t work faster,” or “If
you don’t work better,” or “If you don’t recollect what I tell you, I
will have you flogged,” I often heard. I said to one of the overseers,
“It must be disagreeable to have to punish them as much as you do?”
“Yes, it would be to those who are not used to it—but it’s my business,
and I think nothing of it. Why, sir, I wouldn’t mind killing a nigger
more than I would a dog.” I asked if he had ever killed a negro? “Not
quite that,” he said, but overseers were often obliged to. Some negroes
are determined never to let a white man whip them, and will resist you,
when you attempt it; of course you must kill them in that case.[24]
Once a negro, whom he was about to whip in the field, struck at his
head with a hoe. He parried the blow with his whip, and, drawing a
pistol, tried to shoot him; but the pistol missing fire, he rushed in
and knocked him down with the butt of it. At another time, a negro whom
he was punishing insulted and threatened him. He went to the house
for his gun, and as he was returning, the negro, thinking he would be
afraid of spoiling so valuable a piece of property by firing, broke for
the woods. He fired at once, and put six buck-shot into his hips. He
always carried a bowie-knife, but not a pistol unless he anticipated
some unusual act of insubordination. He always kept a pair of pistols
ready loaded over the mantel-piece, however, in case they should be
needed. It was only when he first came upon a plantation that he ever
had much trouble. A great many overseers were unfit for their business,
and too easy and slack with the negroes. When he succeeded such a man,
he had hard work for a time to break the negroes in; but it did not
take long to teach them their place. His conversation on the subject
was exactly like what I have heard said, again and again, by northern
shipmasters and officers, with regard to seamen.

I happened to see the severest corporeal punishment of a negro that I
witnessed at the South while visiting this estate. I suppose, however,
that punishment equally severe is common; in fact, it must be necessary
to the maintenance of adequate discipline on every large plantation.
It is much more necessary than on shipboard, because the opportunities
of hiding away and shirking labour, and of wasting and injuring the
owner’s property without danger to themselves, are far greater in
the case of the slaves than in that of the sailors, but, above all,
because there is no real moral obligation on the part of the negro to
do what is demanded of him. The sailor performs his duty in obedience
to a voluntary contract; the slave is in an involuntary servitude. The
manner of the overseer who inflicted the punishment, and his subsequent
conversation with me about it, indicated that it was by no means
unusual in severity. I had accidentally encountered him, and he was
showing me his plantation. In going from one side of it to the other,
we had twice crossed a deep gully, at the bottom of which was a thick
covert of brushwood. We were crossing it a third time, and had nearly
passed through the brush, when the overseer suddenly stopped his horse
exclaiming, “What’s that? Hallo! who are you, there?”

It was a girl lying at full length on the ground at the bottom of the
gully, evidently intending to hide herself from us in the bushes.

“Who are you, there?”

“Sam’s Sall, sir.”

“What are you skulking there for?”

The girl half rose, but gave no answer.

“Have you been here all day?”

“No, sir.”

“How did you get here?”

The girl made no reply.

“Where have you been all day?”

The answer was unintelligible.

After some further questioning, she said her father accidentally locked
her in, when he went out in the morning.

“How did you manage to get out?”

“Pushed a plank off, sir, and crawled out.”

The overseer was silent for a moment, looking at the girl, and then
said, “That won’t do; come out here.” The girl arose at once, and
walked towards him. She was about eighteen years of age. A bunch of
keys hung at her waist, which the overseer espied, and he said, “Your
father locked you in; but you have got the keys.” After a little
hesitation, she replied that these were the keys of some other locks;
her father had the door-key.

Whether her story were true or false, could have been ascertained in
two minutes by riding on to the gang with which her father was at work,
but the overseer had made up his mind.

“That won’t do;” said he, “get down.” The girl knelt on the ground;
he got off his horse, and holding him with his left hand, struck her
thirty or forty blows across the shoulders with his tough, flexible,
“raw-hide” whip (a terrible instrument for the purpose). They were well
laid on, at arm’s length, but with no appearance of angry excitement
on the part of the overseer. At every stroke the girl winced and
exclaimed, “Yes, sir!” or “Ah, sir!” or “Please, sir!” not groaning
or screaming. At length he stopped and said, “Now tell me the truth.”
The girl repeated the same story. “You have not got enough yet,” said
he; “pull up your clothes—lie down.” The girl without any hesitation,
without a word or look of remonstrance or entreaty, drew closely all
her garments under her shoulders, and lay down upon the ground with her
face toward the overseer, who continued to flog her with the raw hide,
across her naked loins and thighs, with as much strength as before.
She now shrunk away from him, not rising, but writhing, grovelling,
and screaming, “Oh, don’t sir! oh, please stop, master! please, sir!
please, sir! oh, that’s enough, master! oh, Lord! oh, master, master!
oh, God master, do stop! oh, God, master! oh, God, master!”

A young gentleman of fifteen was with us; he had ridden in front, and
now, turning on his horse, looked back with an expression only of
impatience at the delay. It was the first time I had ever seen a woman
flogged. I had seen a man cudgelled and beaten, in the heat of passion,
before, but never flogged with a hundredth part of the severity used in
this case. I glanced again at the perfectly passionless but rather grim
business-like face of the overseer, and again at the young gentleman,
who had turned away; if not indifferent he had evidently not the
faintest sympathy with my emotion. Only my horse chafed. I gave him
rein and spur and we plunged into the bushes and scrambled fiercely
up the steep acclivity. The screaming yells and the whip strokes had
ceased when I reached the top of the bank. Choking, sobbing, spasmodic
groans only were heard. I rode on to where the road, coming diagonally
up the ravine, ran out upon the cotton-field. My young companion met me
there, and immediately afterward the overseer. He laughed as he joined
us, and said:

“She meant to cheat me out of a day’s work, and she has done it, too.”

“Did you succeed in getting another story from her?” I asked, as soon
as I could trust myself to speak.

“No; she stuck to it.”

“Was it not perhaps true?”

“Oh no, sir; she slipped out of the gang when they were going to work,
and she’s been dodging about all day, going from one place to another
as she saw me coming. She saw us crossing there a little while ago, and
thought we had gone to the quarters, but we turned back so quick, we
came into the gully before she knew it, and she could do nothing but
lie down in the bushes.”

“I suppose they often slip off so.”

“No, sir; I never had one do so before—not like this; they often run
away to the woods, and are gone some time, but I never had a dodge-off
like this before.”

“Was it necessary to punish her so severely?”

“Oh yes, sir,” (laughing again.) “If I hadn’t, she would have done the
same thing again to-morrow, and half the people on the plantation would
have followed her example. Oh, you’ve no idea how lazy these niggers
are; you Northern people don’t know anything about it. They’d never do
any work at all if they were not afraid of being whipped.”

We soon afterward met an old man, who, on being closely questioned,
said that he had seen the girl leave the gang as they went to work
after dinner. It appeared that she had been at work during the
forenoon, but at dinner-time the gang was moved, and as it passed
through the gully she slipped out. The driver had not missed her. The
overseer said that when he first took charge of this plantation, the
negroes ran away a great deal—they disliked him so much. They used to
say, ’twas hell to be on his place; but after a few months they got
used to his ways, and liked him better than any of the rest. He had
not had any run away now for some time. When they ran away they would
generally return within a fortnight. If many of them went off, or if
they stayed out long, he would make the rest of the force work Sundays,
or deprive them of some of their usual privileges until the runaways
returned. The negroes on the plantation could always bring them in if
they chose to do so. They depended on them for their food, and they had
only to stop the supplies to oblige them to surrender.

  *       *       *       *       *

Accepting the position of the overseer, I knew that his method was
right, but it was a red-hot experience to me, and has ever since been
a fearful thing in my memory. Strangely so, I sometimes think, but I
suppose the fact that the delicate and ingenuous lad who was with me,
betrayed not even the slightest flush of shame, and that I constrained
myself from the least expression of feeling of any kind, made the
impression in my brain the more intense and lasting.

Sitting near a gang with an overseer and the manager, the former would
occasionally call out to one and another by name, in directing or
urging their labour. I asked if he knew them all by name. He did, but I
found that the manager did not know one in five of them. The overseer
said he generally could call most of the negroes on a plantation
by their names in two weeks after he came to it, but it was rather
difficult to learn them on account of there being so many of the same
name, distinguished from each other by a prefix. “There’s a Big Jim
here, and a Little Jim, and Eliza’s Jim, and there’s Jim Bob, and Jim
Clarisy.”

“What’s Jim Clarisy?—how does he get that name?”

“He’s Clarisy’s child, and Bob is Jim Bob’s father. That fellow ahead
there, with the blue rag on his head, his name is Swamp; he always goes
by that name, but his real name is Abraham, I believe; is it not, Mr.
[Manager]?”

“His name is Swamp on the plantation register—that’s all I know of
him.”

“I believe his name is Abraham,” said the overseer; “he told me so.
He was bought of Judge ——, he says, and he told me his master called
him Swamp because he ran away so much. He is the worst runaway on the
place.”

I inquired about the increase of the negroes on the estate, and the
manager having told me the number of deaths and births the previous
year, which gave a net increase of four per cent.—on Virginia estates
it is often twenty per cent.—I asked if the negroes began to have
children at a very early age. “Sometimes at sixteen,” said the
manager. “Yes, and at fourteen,” said the overseer; “that girl’s had a
child”—pointing to a girl that did not appear older than fourteen. “Is
she married?” “No.” “You see,” said the manager, “negro girls are not
remarkable for chastity; their habits indeed rather hinder them from
having children. They’d have them younger than they do, if they would
marry or live with but one man, sooner than they do.[25] They often do
not have children till they are twenty-five years old.” “Are those who
are married true to each other?” I asked. The overseer laughed heartily
at the idea, and described a disgusting state of things. Women were
almost common property, though sometimes the men were not all inclined
to acknowledge it; for when I asked: “Do you not try to discourage
this?” the overseer answered: “No, not unless they quarrel.” “They get
jealous and quarrel among themselves sometimes about it,” the manager
explained, “or come to the overseer and complain, and he has them
punished.” “Give all hands a damned good hiding,” said the overseer.
“You punish for adultery, then, but not for fornication?” “Yes,”
answered the manager, but “No,” insisted the overseer, “we punish them
for quarrelling; if they don’t quarrel I don’t mind anything about it,
but if it makes a muss, I give all four of ’em a warning.”

Riding through a large gang of hoers, with two of the overseers, I
observed that a large proportion of them appeared to be thorough-bred
Africans. Both of them thought that the “real black niggers” were
about three-fourths of the whole number, and that this would hold
as an average on Mississippi and Louisiana plantations. One of them
pointed out a girl—“That one is pure white; you see her hair?” (It
was straight and sandy.) “She is the only one we have got.” It was
not uncommon, he said, to see slaves so white that they could not be
easily distinguished from pure-blooded whites. He had never been on a
plantation before, that had not more than one on it.[26] “Now,” said
I, “if that girl should dress herself well, and run away, would she be
suspected of being a slave?” (I could see nothing myself by which to
distinguish her, as she passed, from an ordinary poor white girl.)

“Oh, yes; you might not know her if she got to the North, but any of us
would know her.”

“How?”

“By her language and manners.”

“But if she had been brought up as house-servant?”

“Perhaps not in that case.”

The other thought there would be no difficulty; you could always see a
slave girl quail when you looked in her eyes.

I asked if they thought the mulattoes or white slaves were weaker or
less valuable than the pure negroes.

“Oh, no; I’d rather have them a great deal,” said one. “Well, I had
not,” said the other; “the blacker the better for me.” “The white
ones,” added the first, “are more active, and know more, and I think
they do the most work.” “Are they more subject to illness, or do
they appear to be of weaker constitutions?” One said they were not,
the other that they did not seem to bear the heat as well. The first
thought that this might be so, but that, nevertheless, they would do
more work. I afterwards asked the manager’s opinion. He thought they
did not stand excessive heat as well as the pure negroes, but that,
from their greater activity and willingness, they would do more work.
He believed they were equally strong and no more liable to illness;
had never had reason to think them of weaker constitution. They often
had-large families, and he had not noticed that their children were
weaker or more subject to disease than others. He thought that perhaps
they did not have so many children as the pure negroes, but he had
supposed the reason to be that they did not begin bearing so young as
the others, and this was because they were more attractive to the men,
and perhaps more amorous themselves. He knew a great many mulattoes
living together, and they generally had large and healthy families.

Afterwards, at one of the plantation nurseries, where there were some
twenty or thirty infants and young children, a number of whom were
evidently the offspring of white fathers, I asked the nurse to point
out the healthiest children to me, and of those she indicated more were
of the pure than of the mixed breed. I then asked her to show me which
were the sickliest, and she did not point to any of the latter. I then
asked if she noticed any difference in this respect between the black
and the yellow children. “Well, dey do say, master, dat de yellow ones
is de sickliest, but I can’t tell for true dat I ever see as dey was.”

Being with the proprietor and the manager together, I asked about
the religious condition of the slaves. There were “preachers” on the
plantations, and they had some religious observances on a Sunday; but
the preachers were the worst characters among them, and, they thought,
only made their religion a cloak for habits of especial depravity.
They were, at all events, the most deceitful and dishonest slaves
on the plantation, and oftenest required punishment. The negroes of
all denominations, and even those who ordinarily made no religious
pretensions, would join together in exciting religious observances.
They did not like to have white men preach on the estate; and in future
they did not intend to permit them to do so. It excited the negroes so
much as to greatly interfere with the subordination and order which
were necessary to obtain the profitable use of their labour. They would
be singing and dancing every night in then cabins, till dawn of day,
and utterly unfit themselves for work.

With regard to the religious instruction of slaves, widely different
practices of course prevail. There are some slaveholders, like Bishop
Polk of Louisiana,[27] who oblige, and many others who encourage,
their slaves to engage in religious exercises, furnishing them certain
conveniences for the purpose. Among the wealthier slaveowners, however,
and in all those parts of the country where the enslaved portion of
the population outnumbers the whites, there is generally a visible,
and often an avowed distrust of the effect of religious exercises upon
slaves, and even the preaching of white clergymen to them is permitted
by many with reluctance. The prevailing impression among us, with
regard to the important influence of slavery in promoting the spread of
religion among the blacks, is an erroneous one in my opinion. I have
heard northern clergymen speak as if they supposed a regular daily
instruction of slaves in the truths of Christianity to be general. So
far is this from being the case, that although family prayers were held
in several of the fifty planters’ houses in Mississippi and Alabama, in
which I passed a night, I never in a single instance saw a field-hand
attend or join in the devotion of the family.

In South Carolina, a formal remonstrance, signed by over three hundred
and fifty of the leading planters and citizens, was presented to a
Methodist clergyman who had been chosen by the Conference of that
State, as being a cautious and discreet person, to preach especially to
slaves. It was his purpose, expressly declared beforehand, to confine
himself to verbal instruction in religious truth. “Verbal instruction,”
replied the remonstrants, “will increase the desire of the black
population to learn. * * * Open the missionary sluice, and the current
will swell in its gradual onward advance. We thus expect _a progressive
system of improvement_ will be introduced, or will follow from the
nature and force of circumstances, which, if not checked (though it may
be shrouded in sophistry and disguise), _will ultimately revolutionize
our civil institutions_.”

The missionary, the Rev. T. Tupper, accordingly retired from the field.
The local newspaper, the _Grenville Mountaineer_, in announcing his
withdrawal, stated that the great body of the people were manifestly
opposed to the religious instruction of their slaves, even if it were
only given orally.

Though I do not suppose this view is often avowed, or consciously
held by intelligent citizens, such a formal, distinct, and effective
manifestation of sentiment made by so important an integral portion
of the slaveholding body, cannot be supposed to represent a merely
local or occasional state of mind; and I have not been able to resist
the impression, that even where the economy, safety, and duty of
some sort of religious education of the slaves is conceded, so much
caution, reservation, and restriction is felt to be necessary in their
instruction, that the result in the majority of cases has been merely
to furnish a delusive clothing of Christian forms and phrases to the
original vague superstition of the African savage.

In the county of Liberty, in Georgia, a Presbyterian minister has
been for many years employed exclusively in labouring for the moral
enlightenment of the slaves, being engaged and paid for this especial
duty by their owners. From this circumstance, almost unparalleled as
it is, it may be inferred that the planters of that county are, as a
body, remarkably intelligent, liberal, and thoughtful for the moral
welfare of the childlike wards Providence has placed under their care
and tutorship. According to my private information, there is no body of
slaveowners more, if any as much so, in the United States. I heard them
referred to with admiration of their reputation in this particular,
even as far away as Virginia and Kentucky. I believe, that in no
other district has there been displayed as general and long-continued
an interest in the spiritual well-being of the negroes. It must be
supposed that nowhere else are their circumstances more happy and
favourable to Christian nurture.[28]

After labouring thirteen years with a zeal and judgment which had
made him famous, this apostle to the slaves of Liberty was called to
the professorship of theology in the University of South Carolina.
On retiring from his field of labour as a missionary, he addressed a
valedictory sermon to his patrons, which has been published. While
there is no unbecoming despondency or absence of proper gratitude for
such results as have rewarded his protracted labour, visible in this
document, the summing up is not such as would draw unusual cheers if
given in the report of an African missionary at the Tabernacle or
Exeter Hall. Without a word on which the most vigilant suspicion could
rest a doubt of his entire loyalty to the uttermost rights of property
which might be claimed by those whom he addressed, he could not avoid
indicating, in the following passages, what he had been obliged to see
to be the insurmountable difficulty in the way of any vital elevation
of character among those to whom he had been especially charged to
preach the Gospel wherewith Christ blessed mankind:—

     “They [his pastoral charge] are, in the language of Scripture,
     ‘_your money_.’ They are the source, the means of your wealth; by
     their labour do you obtain the necessaries, the conveniences, and
     comforts of life. The increase of them is the general standard of
     your worldly prosperity: without them you would be comparatively
     poor. _They are consequently sought after and desired as property,
     and when possessed, must be so taken care of and managed as to be
     made profitable._

     “Now, it is exceedingly difficult to use them as money; to
     treat them as property, and at the same time render to them that
     which is just and equal as immortal and accountable beings, and
     as heirs of the grace of life, equally with ourselves. They are
     associated in our business, and thoughts, and feelings, with
     labour, and interest, and gain, and wealth. Under the influence
     of the powerful feeling of self-interest, there is a tendency to
     view and to treat them as instruments of labour, as a means of
     wealth, and to forget or pass over lightly, the fact that they are
     what they are, under the eye and government of God. There is a
     tendency to rest satisfied with very small and miserable efforts
     for their moral improvement, and to give one’s self but little
     trouble to correct immoralities and reform wicked practices and
     habits, should they do their work quietly and profitably, and
     enjoy health, and go on to multiply and increase upon the earth.”

This is addressed to a body of “professing evangelical Christians,” in
a district in which more is done for the elevation of the slaves than
in any other of the South. What they are called to witness from their
own experience, as the tendency of a system which recognizes slaves
as absolute property, mere instruments of labour and means of wealth,
“exceedingly difficult” for them to resist, is, I am well convinced,
the _entirely irresistible effect_ upon the mass of slaveholders.
Fearing that moral and intellectual culture may injure their value as
property, they oftener interfere to prevent than they endeavour to
assist their slaves from using the poor opportunities that chance may
throw in their way.

Moreover, the missionary adds:—

     “The current of the conversation and of business in society, in
     respect to negroes, runs in the channel of interest, and thus
     increases the blindness and insensibility of owners. * * * And
     this custom of society acts also on the negroes, who, seeing, and
     more than seeing, _feeling and knowing, that their owners regard
     and treat them as their money—as property only_—are inclined to
     lose sight of their better character and higher interests, and,
     in their ignorance and depravity, to estimate themselves, and
     religion, and virtue, no higher than their owners do.”

Again, from the paramount interest of owners in the property quality
of these beings, they provide them only such accommodations for
spending the time in which they are not actively employed, as shall be
favourable to their bodily health, and enable them to comply with the
commandment, to “increase and multiply upon the earth,” without regard
to their moral health, without caring much for their obedience to the
more pure and spiritual commands of the Scriptures.

     “The consequent mingling up of husbands and wives, children and
     youths, banishes the privacy and modesty essential to domestic
     peace and purity, and opens wide the door to dishonesty,
     oppression, violence, and profligacy. The owner may see, or
     hear, or know little of it. His servants may appear cheerful,
     and go on in the usual way, and enjoy health, and do his will,
     yet their actual moral state may be miserable. * * * _If family
     relations are not preserved and protected, we cannot look for any
     considerable degree of moral and religious improvement._”

It must be acknowledged of slavery, as a system, not only in Liberty
county, but as that system finds the expression of the theory on which
it is based in the laws of every Southern State, that family relations
are not preserved and protected under it. As we should therefore
expect, the missionary finds that

     “One of the chief causes of the immorality of negroes arises from
     the indifference both of themselves and of their owners to family
     relations.”

Large planters generally do not allow their negroes to marry off
the plantation to which they belong, conceiving “that their own
convenience and interest, and,” says the missionary, “the comfort and
_real_ happiness of their people” are thereby promoted. Upon this
point, however, it is but just to quote the views of the editor of the
_Southern Agriculturist_, who, in urging planters to adopt and strictly
maintain such a regulation, says: “If a master has a servant, and no
suitable one of the other sex for a companion, he had better give an
extra price for such an one as his would be willing to marry, than to
have one man owning the husband, and the other the wife.”

But this mode of arranging the difficulty seems not to have occurred
to the Liberty county missionary; and while arguing against the course
usually pursued, he puts the following, as a pertinent suggestion:—

     “Admitting that they are people having their preferences as well
     as others, _and there be a supply_, can that love which is the
     foundation and essence of the marriage state be forced?”

Touching honesty and thrift among the negroes, he says:

     “While some discipline their people for every act of theft
     committed against their interests, they have no care whatever
     what amount of pilfering and stealing the people carry on _among
     themselves_. Hence, in some places, thieves thrive and honest men
     suffer, until it becomes a practice ‘to keep if you can what is
     your own, and get all you can besides that is your neighbour’s.
     Things come to such a pass, that the saying of the negroes is
     literally true, ‘The people live upon one another.’”

Referring to the evil of intemperance, it is observed:

     “Whatever toleration masters use towards ardent spirits in
     others, they are generally inclined to use none in respect to
     their servants; and in effecting this reformation, masters
     and mistresses should set the example; for without example,
     precepts and persuasions are powerless. Nor can force effect this
     reformation as surely and perfectly as persuasion—appealing to
     the character and happiness of the servant himself, the appeal
     recognizes him in such a manner as to produce self-respect, and it
     tends to give elevation of conduct and character. I will not dwell
     upon this point.”

He will not dwell on this point; yet, is it not evident that until this
point can be dwelt upon, all effort for the genuine Christianization of
the negro race in the South must be ineffectual?

The benefit to the African which is supposed to be incidental to
American slavery, is confessedly proportionate to the degree in which
he is forced into intercourse with a superior race and made subject
to its example. Before I visited the South, I had believed that the
advantages accruing from slavery, in this way, far outweighed the
occasional cruelties, and other evils incidental to the system. I
found, however, the mental and moral condition of the negroes, even
in Virginia, and in those towns and districts containing the largest
proportion of whites, much lower than I had anticipated; and as soon
as I had an opportunity to examine one of the extensive plantations of
the interior, although one inherited by its owner, and the home of a
large and virtuous white family, I was satisfied that the advantages
arising to the blacks from association with their white masters were
very inconsiderable, scarcely appreciable, for the great majority of
the field-hands. Even the overseer had barely acquaintance enough with
the slaves, individually, to call them by name; the owner could not
determine if he were addressing one of his own chattels, or whether
it was another man’s property, he said, when by chance he came upon
a negro off the work. Much less did the slaves have an opportunity
to cultivate their minds by intercourse with other white people.
Whatever of civilization, and of the forms, customs, and shibboleths
of Christianity, they were acquiring by example, and through police
restraints, might, it occurred to me, after all, but poorly compensate
the effect of the systematic withdrawal from them of all the usual
influences which tend to nourish the moral nature and develope the
intellectual faculties, in savages as well as in civilized free men.

This doubt, as my Northern friends well know, for I had habitually
assumed the opposite, in all previous discussions of the slavery
question, was unexpected and painful to me. I resisted it long, and it
was not till I had been more than twelve months in the South, with my
attention constantly fixed upon the point, that I ceased to suspect
that the circumstances which brought me to it were exceptional and
deceptive. It grew constantly stronger with every opportunity I had of
observing the condition, habits, and character of slaves whom I could
believe to present fair examples of the working of the system with the
majority of those subject to it upon the large plantations.

  *       *       *       *       *

The frequency with which the slaves use religious phrases of all
kinds, the readiness with which they engage in what are deemed
religious exercises, and fall into religious ecstacies, with the crazy,
jocular manner in which they often talk of them, are striking and
general characteristics. It is not at all uncommon to hear them refer
to conversations which they allege, and apparently believe themselves
to have had with Christ, the apostles, or the prophets of old, or to
account for some of their actions by attributing them to the direct
influence of the Holy Spirit, or of the devil. It seems to me that this
state of mind is fraught with more danger to their masters than any to
which they could possibly have been brought by general and systematic
education, and by the unrestricted study of the Bible, even though
this involved what is so much dreaded, but which is, I suspect, an
inevitable accompaniment of moral elevation, the birth of an ambition
to look out for themselves. Grossly ignorant and degraded in mind,
with a crude, undefined, and incomplete system of theology and ethics,
credulous and excitable, intensely superstitious and fanatical, what
better field could a cunning monomaniac or a sagacious zealot desire in
which to set on foot an appalling crusade?

The African races, compared with the white, at least with the
Teutonic, have greater vanity or love of approbation, a stronger
dramatic and demonstrative character, more excitability, less exact
or analytic minds, and a nature more sensuous, though (perhaps from
want of cultivation) less refined. They take a real pleasure, for
instance, such as it is a rare thing for a white man to be able to
feel, in bright and strongly contrasting colours, and in music, in
which nearly all are proficient to some extent. They are far less
adapted for steady, uninterrupted labour than we are, but excel us in
feats demanding agility and tempestuous energy. A Mississippi steamboat
manned by negro deck-hands will wood up a third quicker than one manned
by the same number of whites; but white labourers of equal intelligence
and under equal stimulus will cut twice as much wood, split twice
as many rails, and hoe a third more corn in a day than negroes. On
many plantations, religious exercises are almost the only habitual
recreation not purely sensual, from steady dull labour, in which
the negroes are permitted to indulge, and generally all other forms
of mental enjoyment are discouraged. Religious exercises are rarely
forbidden, and a greater freedom to individual impulse and talent is
allowed while engaged in them than is ever tolerated in conducting mere
amusements or educational exercises.

Naturally and necessarily all that part of the negro’s nature which is
otherwise suppressed, bursts out with an intensity and vehemence almost
terrible to witness, in forms of religious worship and communion; and
a “profession” of piety which it is necessary to make before one can
take a very noticeable part in the customary social exercises, is
almost universal, except on plantations where the ordinary tumultuous
religious meetings are discouraged, or in towns where other recreations
are open to the slaves.[29]

Upon the value of the statistics of “coloured church membership,”
which are often used as evidence that the evils of slavery are fully
compensated by its influence in Christianizing the slaves, some light
is thrown by the following letter from the white pastor of a town
church in that part of the South in which the whites are most numerous,
and in which the negroes enjoy the most privileges.

     “_To the Editor of the Richmond (Virginia) Religious Herald._

     * * * “The truth is, the teachings of the pulpit (at least among
     Baptists) have nothing to do with the matter. Let me furnish
     a case in proof. Of two churches which the writer serves, his
     immediate predecessor was pastor for about twenty-five years. It
     would be only necessary to give his name, to furnish the strongest
     and most satisfactory assurance that nothing which ever fell
     from his lips could be construed into the support of ignorance,
     superstition, or fanaticism. During the five or six years I have
     served these churches, whatever may have been my errors and
     failings (and I am ready to admit that they have been numerous
     and grievous enough, in all conscience), I know I have never
     uttered a sentiment which could be tortured into the support of
     the superstitions prevailing among the coloured people. And yet
     in both these churches, the coloured members are as superstitious
     and fanatical as they are elsewhere. Indeed, this was to be
     expected, for I certainly claim no superiority over my brethren in
     the ministry, and I am satisfied that many of them are far better
     qualified than I am to expose error and to root out superstition.
     This state of things, then, is not due to the teachings of the
     pulpit. Nor is it the result of private instructions by masters.
     Indeed, these last have been afforded so sparingly, till within a
     few years since, that they could produce but little effect of any
     sort. And, besides, those who own servants, and are willing to
     teach them, are far too intelligent to countenance superstition
     in any way. I repeat the inquiry, then, Why is it that so many of
     our coloured members are ignorant, superstitious, and fanatical?
     It is the effect of instructions received from leading men among
     themselves, and the churches are responsible for this effect, in
     so far as they receive into fellowship those who have listened to
     these instructions, ground their hopes upon them, and guide their
     lives by them. Whatever we may say against superstition, so long
     as we receive into our churches those who are its slaves, they
     will believe that we think them Christians; and naturally relying
     on our judgment as expressed by their reception, they will live
     deluded, and die but to be lost.

     “But some one will say, ‘We never receive coloured persons when
     they manifest these superstitions—when they talk of visions,
     dreams, sounds,’ etc. This is right as far as it goes. In every
     such case they should be rejected. But superstition of a fatal
     character often exists where nothing is said about dreams and
     visions. It is just as fatally superstitious to trust in prayers
     and feelings, as in dreams and visions. And this is the sort
     of superstition which now prevails among the coloured people.
     They have found that sights and sounds will not answer before
     the whites, and now (reserving these, perhaps, for some chosen
     auditory of their own colour), they substitute prayers and
     feelings. In illustration permit me to record, in no spirit
     of levity, the stereotyped experience which generally passes
     current, and, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, introduces
     the coloured candidate into the church. The pastor is informed, by
     one of the ‘coloured deacons,’ that a man wishes to offer to the
     church with a view to baptism. The fact is announced, a meeting of
     the church called, and the candidate comes forward.

     “_Pastor._—‘Well, John, tell me in a few words, in your own way,
     your religious experience. What have been your feelings, and what
     are your present hopes and purposes?’

     “_John._—‘I see other people trying, and so I thought I would try
     too, as I had a soul to save. So I went to pray, and the more I
     pray the wus I felt; so I kept on praying, and the more I pray the
     wus I felt. I felt heavy—I felt a weight—and I kept on praying
     till at last I felt light—I felt easy—I felt like I loved all
     Christian people—I felt like I loved everybody,’

     “Now this is positively the whole of the experience which is
     generally related by coloured candidates for baptism. There may be
     a slight variation of expression now and then, but the sense is
     almost invariably the same. On this experience, hundreds have been
     received into the churches—I I have received many upon it myself.
     I am somewhat curious to know how many of the seventy, baptized
     by my good brother Bagby, told this tale. I’ll warrant not less
     than fifty. Have any of us been right in receiving persons on
     such a relation as this? In the whole of it, there is not one
     word of gospel, not one word about sorrow for sin, not one word
     about faith, not one word about Christ. I know that all these
     things are subsequently brought out by questions; and were this
     not the case, I have no idea that the candidate would be in any
     instance received. _But that these questions may be understood,
     they are made necessarily ‘leading questions,’_ such as suggest
     their answers; and consequently these answers are of comparatively
     little value. * * * I am aware that, as brother Bagby suggests,
     private instructions by masters have been too much neglected.
     _But these can accomplish but little good, so long as they are
     counteracted by the teachings of leading coloured members, in
     whose views, after all our efforts, the coloured people will have
     most confidence._”

Not the smallest suggestion, I observe, in all the long article from
which the above is derived, is ventured, that the negroes are capable
of education, or that their religious condition would improve if their
general enlightenment of mind were not studiously prevented.

“I have often heard the remark made,” says the Rev. C. C. Jones, in a
treatise on the “Religious Instruction of Slaves,” printed at Savannah,
Georgia, 1842, “by men whose standing and office in the churches
afforded them abundant opportunity for observation, that the more they
have had to do with coloured members, the less confidence they have
been compelled to place in their Christian professions.”

A portion of a letter written for publication by the wife of the pastor
of a church in the capital of Alabama, given below, naïvely reveals the
degree of enlightenment prevailing among the Christianized Africans at
a point where their means of instruction are a thousand times better
than they are on an average throughout the country.

     “Having talked to him seriously, and in the strongest light held
     up to him the enormity of the crime of forsaking his lawful wife
     and taking another, Colly replied, most earnestly, and not taking
     in at all the idea of guilt, but deeply distressed at having
     offended his master:

     “‘Lor, Massa Harry, what was I to do, sir? She tuk all I could
     git, and more too, sir, to put on her back; and tellin’ de truf,
     sir, dress herself as no poor man’s wife hav’ any right to. I
     ’monstrated wid her, massa, but to no purpose; and den, sir, w’y
     I jis did all a decent man could do—lef her, sir, for some oder
     nigger better off ’an I is.’

     “’Twas no use. Colly could not be aroused to conscientiousness on
     the subject.

     “Not one in a thousand, I suppose, of these poor creatures have
     any conception whatever of the sanctity of marriage; nor can they
     be made to have; yet, strange to say, they are perfect models of
     conjugal fidelity and devotion while the temporary bondage lasts.
     I have known them to walk miles after a hard day’s work, not only
     occasionally, but every night, to see the old woman, and cut her
     wood for her, etc. But to see the coolness with which they throw
     off the yoke is diverting in the extreme.

     “I was accosted one morning in my husband’s study by a
     respectable-looking negro woman, who meekly inquired if Mr. B. was
     at home.

     “‘No, he is not. Is it anything particular you want?—perhaps I can
     help you.’

     “‘Yes, ma’am; it’s partickler business wid himself.’

     “Having good reason to believe it was the old story of a ‘mountain
     in labour and brought forth a mouse,’ I pressed the question,
     partly to save my better half some of the petty annoyances to
     which he was almost daily subjected by his sable flock, and
     partly, I own, to gratify a becoming and laudable curiosity, after
     all this show of mystery. Behold the answer in plain English, or
     rather nigger English.

     “‘I came to ask, please ma’am, if I might have another husband.’

     “Just at this crisis the oracle entered, who, having authority by
     a few spoken words, to join together those whom no man may put
     asunder, these poor people simply imagine him gifted with equal
     power to annul the contract with a breath of his mouth.

     “I was heartily amused to find that this woman was really no
     widow, as I had supposed, but merely from caprice, or some reason
     satisfactory to herself, no doubt, took it into her head to drop
     her present spouse and look out for another. The matter was
     referred to the ‘Quarterly Conference,’ where an amusing scene
     occurred, which resulted in the discomfiture of the disconsolate
     petitioner, who returned to her home rather crest-fallen.

     “These Quarterly Conference debates, for flights of oratory,
     and superlativeness of diction, beggar all description. Be it
     understood, that negroes, as a class, have more ‘business’ to
     attend to than any other people—that is, provided they can thereby
     get a chance to ‘speak ’fore white folks.’ To make a speech is
     glory enough for Sambo, if he happen to have the ‘gift of gab;’
     and to speak before the preacher is an honour unparalleled. And,
     by the way, if the preacher have will and wit enough to manage and
     control the discordant elements of a negro Quarterly Conference,
     he will be abundantly rewarded with such respect and gratitude as
     a man seldom may lay claim to. They account him but a very little
     ‘lower than the angels;’ and their lives, their fortunes, and
     their sacred honour, are equally his at command. But wo be to the
     unfortunate pastor who treats them with undue indulgence; they
     will besiege him daily and hourly with their petty affairs, and
     their business meetings will be such a monopoly of his time and
     patience, that but for the farcical character of the same, making
     them more like dramatic entertainments than sober realities, he
     would be in despair. Far into the short hours of morning will
     they speechify and magnify, until nothing but the voice of stern
     authority, in a tone of command not to be mistaken, can stop the
     current.”

An Alabama gentleman whom I questioned with regard to the chastity
of the so-called pious slaves, confessed, that four negro women had
borne children in his own house, all of them at the time members in
good standing of the Baptist church, and none of them calling any man
husband. The only negro man in the house was also a church member, and
he believed that he was the father of the four children. He said that
he did not know of more than one negro woman whom he could suppose to
be chaste, yet he knew hosts who were members of churches.[30]

A Northern clergyman who had been some years in another town in
Alabama, where also the means of instruction offered the slaves were
unusually good, answered my inquiry, What proportion of the coloured
members of the churches in the town had any clear comprehension of the
meaning of the articles of faith which they professed? “Certainly not
more than one in seven.”

The acknowledgment that “the coloured people will, in spite of all
our efforts, have more confidence in the views of leading coloured
members,” made by the writer of the letter taken from the “Religious
Herald,” has been generally made by all clergymen at the South with
whom I have conversed. A clergyman of the Episcopal Church, of very
frank and engaging manners, said in my presence that he had been
striving for seven years to gain the confidence of the small number of
Africans belonging to his congregation, and with extreme humility he
had been lately forced to acknowledge that all his apparent success
hitherto had been most delusive. When asked how he accounted for
it, he at once ascribed it to the negro’s habitual distrust of the
white race, and in discussing the causes of this distrust he asked
how, if he pretended to believe that the Bible was the Word of God,
addressed equally to all the human race, he could explain to a negro’s
satisfaction why he should fear to put it directly into his hands and
instruct him to read it and judge for himself of his duty? A planter
present, a member of his church, immediately observed that these were
dangerous views, and advised him to be cautious in the expression of
them. The laws of the country forbade the education of negroes, and the
church laws, and he trusted always would remain, the bulwark of the
laws. The clergyman replied that he had no design to break the laws,
but he must say that he considered that the law which withheld the
Bible from the negro was unnecessary and papistical in character.[31]

The “Methodist Protestant,” a religious newspaper edited by a
clergyman, in Maryland, where the slave population is to the free
only in the ratio of one to twenty-five, lately printed an account
of a slave auction in Java (translated from a Dutch paper), at which
the father of a slave family was permitted to purchase his wife and
children at a nominal price, owing to the humanity of the spectators.
The account concluded as follows:—

     “It would be difficult to describe the joy experienced by these
     slaves on hearing the fall of the hammer which thus gave them
     their liberty; and this joy was further augmented by the presents
     given them by numbers of the spectators, in order that they might
     be able to obtain a subsistence till such time as they could
     procure employment.

     “These are the acts of a noble generosity that deserves to
     be remembered, and which, at the same time, testify that the
     inhabitants of Java begin to abhor the crying injustice of
     slavery, and are willing to entertain measures for its abolition.”

To give currency to such ideas, even in Maryland, would be fatal to
what ministers call their “influence,” and which they everywhere
value at a rather dangerous estimate; accordingly, in the editorial
columns prominence is given to the following salve to the outraged
sensibilities of the subscribers:

     “SLAVE AUCTION IN JAVA.

     “A brief article, with this head, appears on the fourth page
     of our paper this week. It is of a class of articles we _never
     select_, because they are very often manufactured by paragraphists
     for a purpose, and are not reliable. It was put in by our printer
     in place of something we had _marked out_. We did not see this
     objectionable substitute until the outside form was worked off,
     and are therefore not responsible for it.”[32]

The habitual caution imposed on clergymen and public teachers must,
and obviously does have an important secondary effect, similar to that
usually attributed by Protestants to papacy, upon the minds of all the
people, discountenancing and retarding the free and fearless exercise
of the mind upon subjects of a religious or ethical nature, and the
necessity of accepting and apologizing for the exceedingly low morality
of the nominally religious slaves, together with the familiarity with
this immorality which all classes acquire, renders the existence
of a very elevated standard of morals among the whites almost an
impossibility.[33]

In spite of the constant denunciations by the Southern newspapers, of
those who continued to patronize Northern educational institutions, I
never conversed with a cultivated Southerner on the effects of slavery,
that he did not express a wish or intention to have his own children
educated where they should be free from demoralizing association with
slaves. That this association is almost inevitably corrupting and
dangerous, is very generally (I may say, excepting by the extremest
fanatics of South Carolina, universally) admitted. Now, although the
children of a few wealthy men may, for a limited period, be preserved
from this danger, the children of the million cannot be. Indeed it
requires a man of some culture, and knowledge of the rest of the world,
to appreciate the danger sufficiently to guard at all diligently
against it. If habitual intercourse with a hopelessly low and immoral
class is at all bad in its effects on young minds, the people of the
South are, as a people, educated subject to this bad influence, and
must bear the consequences. In other words, if the slaves must not be
elevated, it would seem to be a necessity that the citizens should
steadily degenerate.

Change and grow more marked in their peculiarities with every
generation, they certainly do, very obviously. “The South” has a
traditional reputation for qualities and habits in which I think the
Southern people, as a whole, are to-day more deficient than any other
nation in the world. The Southern gentleman, as we ordinarily conceive
him to be, is as rare a phenomenon in the South at the present day
as is the old squire of Geoffry Crayon in modern England. But it is
unnecessary to argue how great must be the influence, upon people of a
higher origin, of habitual association with a race systematically kept
at the lowest ebb of intellect and morals. It has been elaborately and
convincingly described by Mr. Jefferson, from his personal experience
and observation of his neighbours. What he testified to be the effect
upon the Virginians, in his day, of owning and associating with slaves,
is now to be witnessed to a far greater and more deplorable extent
throughout the whole South, but most deplorably in districts where the
slave population predominates, and where, consequently, the action of
slavery has been most unimpeded.[34]

What proportion of the larger cotton plantations are resided upon
by their owners, I am unable to estimate with confidence. Of those
having cabin accommodations for fifty slaves each, which came under
my observation from the road, while I was travelling through the rich
cotton district bordering the Mississippi river, I think more than
half were unprovided with a habitation which I could suppose to be
the ordinary residence of a man of moderate wealth. I should judge
that a large majority of all the slaves in this district, were left by
their owners to the nearly unlimited government of hireling overseers
the greater part of the time. Some of these plantations are owned by
capitalists, who reside permanently and constantly in the North or
in Europe. Many are owned by wealthy Virginians and Carolinians, who
reside on the “show plantations” of those States—country seats, the
exhausted soil of which will scarcely produce sufficient to feed and
clothe the resident slaves, whose increase is constantly removed to
colonize these richer fields of the West.

A still larger number are merely occasional sojourning places of their
owners, who naturally enough prefer to live, as soon as they can afford
to do so, where the conveniences and luxuries belonging to a highly
civilized state of society are more easily obtained than they can ever
be in a country of large plantations. It is rare that a plantation
of this class can have a dozen intelligent families residing within
a day’s ride of it. Any society that a planter enjoys on his estate
must, therefore, consist in a great degree of permanent guests. Hence
the name for hospitality of wealthy planters. A large plantation is
necessarily a retreat from general society, and is used by its owner, I
am inclined to think, in the majority of cases, in winter, as Berkshire
villas and farms are in summer by rich people of New York and Boston.
I have never been on a plantation numbering fifty field-hands, the
owner of which was accustomed to reside steadily through the year upon
it. Still I am aware that there are many such, and possibly it is a
minority of them who are regularly absent with their families from
their plantations during any considerable part of the year.

The summer visitors to our Northern watering places, and the European
tourists, from the South, are, I judge, chiefly of the migratory,
wealthy class. Such persons, it is evident are much less influenced in
their character and habits, by association with slaves, than any other
at the South.

The number of the very wealthy is, of course, small, yet as the chief
part of the wealth of these consists in slaves, no inconsiderable
proportion of all the slaves belong to men who deputize their
government in a great measure to overseers. It may be computed, from
the census of 1850, that about one half the slaves of Louisiana and one
third that of Mississippi, belong to estates of not less than fifty
slaves each, and of these, I believe, nine-tenths live on plantations
which their owners reside upon, if at all, but transiently.

The number of plantations of this class, and the proportion of those
employed upon them to the whole body of negroes in the country, is as
I have said, rapidly increasing. At the present prices of cotton the
large grower has such advantages over the small, that the owner of a
plantation of fifty slaves, favourably situated, unless he lives very
recklessly, will increase in wealth so rapidly and possess such a
credit that he may very soon establish or purchase other plantations,
so that at his death his children may be provided for without reducing
the effective force of negroes on any division of his landed estate.
The excessive credit given to such planters by negro dealers and
tradesmen renders this the more practicable. The higher the price
of cotton the higher is that of negroes, and the higher the price
of negroes the less is it in the power of men of small capital to
buy them. Large plantations of course pay a much larger per centage
on the capital invested in them than smaller ones; indeed the only
plausible economical defence of slavery is simply an explanation of
the advantages of associated labour, advantages which are possessed
equally by large manufacturing establishments in which free labourers
are brought together and employed in the most effective manner, and
which I can see no sufficient reason for supposing could not be made
available for agriculture did not the good results flowing from small
holdings, on the whole, counterbalance them. If the present high price
of cotton and the present scarcity of labour at the South continues,
the cultivation of cotton on small plantations will by-and-by become
unusual, for the same reason that hand-loom weaving has become unusual
in the farm houses of Massachusetts.

But whatever advantages large plantations have, they accrue only
to their owners and to the buyers of cotton; the mass of the white
inhabitants are dispersed over a greater surface, discouraged and
driven toward barbarism by them, and the blacks upon them, while
rapidly degenerating from all that is redeeming in savage-life, are, it
is to be feared, gaining little that is valuable of civilization.

In the report of the Grand Jury of Richland District, South Carolina,
in eighteen hundred and fifty-four, calling for a re-establishment of
the African slave trade,[35] it is observed: “As to the moralty of
this question, it is scarcely necessary for us to allude to it; when
the fact is remarked that the plantations of Alabama, Mississippi,
Louisiana, and Texas have been and are daily settled by the removal
of slaves from the more northern of the Slave States, and that in
consequence of their having been raised in a more healthy climate and
in most cases trained to pursuits totally different, the mortality even
on the best-ordered farms is so great that in many instances the entire
income is expended in the purchase of more slaves from the same source
in order to replenish and keep up those plantations, while in _every
case_ the condition of the slave, if his life is spared, is made worse
both physically and morally. * * * And if you look at the subject in a
religious point of view, the contrast is equally striking, for when you
remove a slave from the more northern to the more southern parts of the
slaveholding States, you thereby diminish his religious opportunities.”

I believe that this statement gives an exaggerated and calumnious
report of the general condition of the slaves upon the plantations of
the States referred to—containing, as they do, nearly one half of the
whole slave population of the South—but I have not been able to resist
the conviction that in the districts where cotton is now grown most
profitable to the planters, the oppression and deterioration of the
negro race is much more lamentable than is generally supposed by those
who like myself have been constrained, by other considerations, to
accept it as a duty to oppose temperately but determinately the modern
policy of the South, of which this is an immediate result. Its effect
on the white race, I still consider to be infinitely more deplorable.



CHAPTER VI.

SLAVERY AS A POOR-LAW SYSTEM.


In the year 1846 the Secretary of the Treasury of the United
States addressed a circular of inquiries to persons engaged in
various businesses throughout the country, to obtain information
of the national resources. In reply to this circular, forty-eight
sugar-planters, of St. Mary’s Parish, Louisiana, having compared notes,
made the following statement of the usual expenses of a plantation,
which might be expected to produce, one year with another, one hundred
hogsheads of sugar:—

  Household and family expenses                              $1,000
  Overseer’s salary                                             400
  Food and clothing for 15 working hands, at $30                450
  Food and clothing for 15 old negroes and children, at $15     225
  1½ per cent. on capital invested (which is about $40,000),
  to keep it in repair                                          600
                                                             ------
                                                              2,675

  50 hogsheads sugar, at 4 cents per pound (net
  proceeds)                                         $2,000
  25 hogsheads sugar, at 3 cents per pound (net
  proceeds)                                            750
  25 hogsheads sugar, at 2 cents per pound (net
  proceeds)                                            500
  4,000 gallons of molasses, at 10 cents               400
                                                    ------    3,650
                                                             ------
  Leaving a profit of                                          $975

Another gentleman furnished the following estimate of the expenses of
one of the larger class of plantations, working one hundred slaves, and
producing, per annum, four to five hundred hogsheads of sugar:—

  Overseer                                                   $1,500
  Physician’s attendance (by contract, $3 a head, of all
    ages)                                                       300
  Yearly repairs to engine, copper work, resetting of sugar
    kettles, etc., at least                                     900
  Engineer, during grinding season                              200
  Pork, 50 pounds per day—say, per annum, 90 hogsheads,
    at $12                                                    1,080
  Hoops                                                          80
  Clothing, two full suits per annum, shoes, caps, hats,
    and 100 blankets, at least $15 per slave                  1,500
  Mules or horses, and cattle to replace, at least              500
  Implements of husbandry, iron, nails, lime, etc., at least  1,000
  Factor’s commission, 2½ per cent.                             500
                                                             ------
                                                             $7,560

(It should be noticed that in this estimate the working force is
considered as being equal, in first-class hands, to but one-third
of the whole number of slaves.) — In the report of an Agricultural
Society, the work of one hand, on a well-regulated sugar-estate, is
put down at the cultivation of five acres—producing 5,000 pounds of
sugar, and 125 gallons of molasses; the former valued on the spot at
5½ cents per pound, and the latter at 18 cents per gallon—together,
$297.50. The annual expenses, per hand, including wages paid, horses,
mules, and oxen, physician’s bills, etc., $105. An estate of eighty
negroes annually costs $8,330. The items are as follows—Salt meat and
spirits, $830; clothing, $1,200; medical attendance and medicines,
$400; Indian corn, $1,090 (total for food and drink of negroes, and
other live stock, $24 per head of the negroes, per annum. For clothing
$15); overseer and sugar-maker’s salary, $1,000; taxes $300. The
capital invested in 1,200 acres of land, with its stock of slaves,
horses, mules, and working oxen, is estimated at $147,200. One-third,
or 400 acres, being cultivated annually in cane, it is estimated, will
yield 400,000 pounds, at 5½ cents, and 10,000 gallons molasses at 18
cents—together $23,800. Deduct annual expense, as before, $8,330, an
apparent profit remains of $15,470 or 10 3-7 per cent. interest on the
investment. The crop upon which these estimates were based, has been
considered an uncommonly fine one.

These estimates are all made by persons anxious to maintain the
necessity of protection to the continued production of sugar in the
United States, and who are, therefore, under strong temptation to
over-estimate expenditures.

In the first statement, the cost of clothing and boarding a first-rate,
hard-working man is stated to be $30 a year. A suit of winter
clothing and a pair of trousers for summer, a blanket for bedding,
a pair of shoes and a hat, must all at least be included under the
head of clothing; and these, however poor, could not certainly cost,
altogether, less than $10. For food, then, $20 a year is a large
estimate, which is 5½ cents. a day. This is for the best hands; light
hands are estimated at half this cost. Does the food of a first-rate
labourer, anywhere in the free world, cost less? The lowest price paid
by agricultural labourers in the Free States of America for board is
21 cents a day, that is, $1.50 a week; the larger part probably pay at
least twice as much as this.

On most plantations, I suppose, but by no means on all, the slaves
cultivate “patches,” and raise poultry for themselves. The produce
is nearly always sold to get money to buy tobacco and Sunday finery.
But these additions to the usual allowance cannot be said to be
provided for them by their masters. The labour expended in this way
for themselves does not average half a day a week per slave; and many
planters will not allow their slaves to cultivate patches, because
it tempts them to reserve for and to expend in the night-work the
strength they want employed in their service during the day, and also
because the produce thus obtained is made to cover much plundering of
their master’s crops, and of his live stock.[36] The free labourer
also, in addition to his board, nearly always spends something for
luxuries—tobacco, fruit, and confections, to say nothing of dress and
luxuries and recreations.

The fact is, that ninety-nine in a hundred of our free labourers,
from choice and not from necessity—for the same provisions cost more
in Louisiana than they do anywhere in the Northern States—live, in
respect to food, at least four times as well as the average of the
hardest-worked slaves on the Louisiana sugar-plantations. And for two
or three months in the year I have elsewhere shown that these are
worked with much greater severity than free labourers at the North
ever are. For on no farm, and in no factory, or mine, even when double
wages are paid for night-work, did I ever hear of men or women working
regularly eighteen hours a day. If ever done, it is only when some
accident makes it especially desirable for a few days.

I have not compared the comfort of the light hands, in which, besides
the aged and children, are evidently included most of the females of
the plantation, with that of factory girls and apprentices; but who of
those at the North was ever expected to find board at four cents a day,
and obliged to save money enough out of such an allowance to provide
him or herself with clothing? But that, manifestly and beyond the
smallest doubt of error (except in favour of free labour), expresses
the condition of the Louisiana slave. Forty-eight of the most worthy
planters of the State attest it in an official document, published by
order of Congress.

There is no reason for supposing that the slaves are much, if any,
better fed elsewhere than in Louisiana. I was expressly told in
Virginia that I should find them better fed in Louisiana than anywhere
else. In the same Report of Mr. Secretary Walker, a gentleman in South
Carolina testifies that he considers that the “furnishing” (food and
clothing) of “full-tasked hands” costs $15 a year.[37]

The United States army is generally recruited from our labouring class,
and a well-conditioned and respectable labourer is not very often
induced to join it. The following, taken from an advertisement, for
recruits, in the _Richmond Enquirer_, shows the food provided:

“_Daily Rations._—One and a quarter pounds of beef, one and
three-sixteenths pounds of bread; and at the rate of eight quarts of
beans, eight pounds of sugar, four pounds of coffee, two quarts of
salt, four pounds of candles, and four pounds of soap, to every hundred
rations.”

From an advertisement for slaves to be hired by the year, to work on a
canal, in the _Daily Georgian_:

“_Weekly Allowance._—They will be provided with three and a half
pounds of pork or bacon, and ten quarts of gourd seed corn per week,
lodged in comfortable shanties, and attended by a skilful physician.”

The expense of boarding, clothes, taxes, and so forth, of a male
slave, is estimated by Robert C. Hall, a Maryland planter, at $45 per
annum; this in a climate but little milder than that of New York, and
in a breeding state. By J. D. Messenger, Jerusalem, Virginia: “The
usual estimate for an able-bodied labourer—three barrels of corn, and
250 pounds of well-cured bacon, seldom using beef or pork; peas and
potatoes substitute about one-third the allowance of bread” (maize).
By R. G. Morris, Amherst County, Va.: “Not much beef is used on our
estates; bacon, however, is used much more freely, three pounds a week
being the usual allowance. The quantity of milk used by slaves is
frequently considerable.”-_Pat. Office Report_, 1848.

On the most valuable plantation, with one exception, which I visited in
the South, no meat was regularly provided for the slaves, but a meal of
bacon was given them “occasionally.”

Louisiana is the only State in which meat is required, by law, to be
furnished the slaves. I believe the required ration is four pounds a
week, with a barrel of corn (flour barrel of ears of maize) per month,
and salt. (This law is a dead letter, many planters in the State making
no regular provision of meat for their force.) In North Carolina the
law fixes “a quart of corn per day” as the proper allowance of food for
a slave. In no other States does the law define the quantity, but it
is required, in general terms, to be sufficient for the health of the
slave; and I have no doubt that suffering from want of food is rare.
The food is everywhere, however, coarse, crude, and wanting in variety;
much more so than that of our prison convicts.

Does argument, that the condition of free-labourers is, on the whole,
better than that of slaves, or that simply they are generally better
fed, and more comfortably provided, seem to any one to be unnecessary?
Many of our newspapers, of the largest circulation, and certainly
of great influence among people—probably not very reflective, but
certainly not fools—take the contrary for granted, whenever it suits
their purpose. The Southern newspapers, so far as I know, do so,
without exception. And very few Southern writers, on any subject
whatever, can get through a book, or even a business or friendly
letter, to be sent North, without, in some form or other, asserting
that Northern labourers might well envy the condition of the slaves.
A great many Southern gentlemen—gentlemen whom I respect much for
their moral character, if not for their faculties of observation—have
asserted it so strongly and confidently, as to shut my mouth, and by
assuring me that they had personally observed the condition of Northern
labourers themselves, and really knew that I was wrong, have for a
time half convinced me against my long experience. I have, since my
return, received letters to the same effect: I have heard the assertion
repeated by several travellers, and even by Northerners, who had
resided long in the South: I have heard it publicly repeated in Tammany
Hall, and elsewhere, by Northern Democrats: I have seen it in European
books and journals: I have, in times past, taken its truth for granted,
and repeated it myself. Such is the effect of the continued iteration
of falsehood.

Since my return I have made it a subject of careful and extended
inquiry. I have received reliable and unprejudiced information in the
matter, or have examined personally the food, the wages, and the habits
of the labourers in more than one hundred different farmers’ families,
in every Free State (except California), and in Canada. I have made
personal observations and inquiries of the same sort in Great Britain,
Germany, France, and Belgium. In Europe, where there are large landed
estates, which are rented by lordly proprietors to the peasant farmers,
or where land is divided into such small portions that its owners are
unable to make use of the best modern labour-saving implements, the
condition of the labourer, as respects food, often is as bad as that of
the slave often is—never worse than that sometimes is. But in general,
even in France, I do not believe it is generally or frequently worse;
I believe it is, in the large majority of cases, much better than that
of the majority of slaves. And as respects higher things than the
necessities of life—in their intellectual, moral, and social condition,
with some exceptions on large farms and large estates in England, bad
as is that of the mass of European labourers, the man is a brute or
a devil who, with my information, would prefer that of the American
slave. As to our own labourers, in the Free States, I have already said
enough for my present purpose.

But it is time to speak of the extreme cases, of which so much use has
been made, in the process of destroying the confidence of the people of
the United States in the freedom of trade, as applied to labour.

In the year 1855, the severest winter ever known occurred at New York,
in conjunction with unprecedentedly high prices of food and fuel,
extraordinary business depression, unparalleled marine disasters, and
the failure of establishments employing large numbers of men and women.
At the same time, there continued to arrive, daily, from five hundred
to one thousand of the poorer class of European peasantry. Many of
these came, expecting to find the usual demand and the usual reward for
labour, and were quite unprepared to support themselves for any length
of time unless they could obtain work and wages. There was consequently
great distress.

We all did what we thought we could, or ought, to relieve it; and with
such success, that not one single case of actual starvation is known
to have occurred in a close compacted population of over a million, of
which it was generally reported fifty thousand were out of employment.
Those who needed charitable assistance were, in nearly every case,
recent foreign immigrants, sickly people, cripples, drunkards, or
knaves taking advantage of the public benevolence, to neglect to
provide for themselves. Most of those who received assistance would
have thrown a slave’s ordinary allowance in the face of the giver, as
an insult; and this often occurred with more palatable and suitable
provisions. Hundreds and hundreds, to my personal knowledge, during the
worst of this dreadful season, refused to work for money-wages that
would have purchased them ten times the slave’s ordinary allowance of
the slave’s ordinary food. In repeated instances, men who represented
themselves to be suffering for food refused to work for a dollar a
day. A labourer, employed by a neighbour of mine, on wages and board,
refused to work unless he was better fed. “What’s the matter,” said my
neighbour; “don’t you have enough?” “Enough; yes, such as it is.” “You
have good meat, good bread, and a variety of vegetables; what do you
want else?” “Why, I want pies and puddings, too, to be sure.” Another
labourer left another neighbour of mine, because, as he alleged, he
never had any meat offered him except beef and pork; he “didn’t see why
he shouldn’t have chickens.”

And these men went to New York, and joined themselves to that army
on which our Southern friends exercise their pity—of labourers out
of work—of men who are supposed to envy the condition of the slave,
because the “slave never dies for want of food.”[38]

In the depth of winter, a trustworthy man wrote us from Indiana:—

     “Here, at Rensselaer, a good mechanic, a joiner or shoemaker, for
     instance—and numbers are needed here—may obtain for his labour in
     one week:

       2 bushels of corn.
       1 bushel of wheat.
       5 pounds of sugar.
       ½ pound of tea.
       10 pounds of beef.
       25 pounds of pork.
       1 good turkey.
       3 pounds of butter.
       1 pound of coffee.
       1 bushel of potatoes.

     and have a couple of dollars left in his pocket, to start with the
     next Monday morning.”

The moment the ice thawed in the spring, the demand for mechanics
exceeded the supply, and the workmen had the master-hand of the
capitalists. In June, the following rates were willingly paid to the
different classes of workmen—some of the trades being on strike for
higher:—

                             Dollars per
                                Week.
     Boiler-maker               12 to 20
     Blacksmith                 12 to 20
     Baker                       9 to 14
     Barber                      7 to 10
     Bricklayer                 14 to 15
     Boat-builder                     15
     Cooper                      8 to 12
     Carpenter (house)                15
     Confectioner                8 to 12
     Cigar-maker                 9 to 25
     Car-driver (city cars)           10
     Car-conductor (city cars)        10½
     Engineer, common           12 to 15
     Engineer, locomotive             15
     Harness-maker                    10
     Mason                      10 to 15
     Omnibus-driver                   10
     Printer                    10 to 25
     Plumber                          15
     Painter (house)                  15
     Pianoforte maker           10 to 14
     Shipwright                       18
     Ship-caulker                     18
     Ship-fastener                    18
     Shoemaker                        16
     Sign painter               25 to 30
     Sail-maker                       15
     Tailor                      8 to 17

At this time I engaged a gardener, who had been boarding for a month
or two in New York, and paying for his board and lodging $3 a week. I
saw him at the dinner-table of his boarding house, and I knew that the
table was better supplied with a variety of wholesome food, and was
more attractive, than that of the majority of slaveowners with whom I
have dined.

Amasa Walker, formerly Secretary of State in Massachusetts, is the
authority for the following table, showing the average wages of a
common (field-hand) labourer in Boston (where immigrants are constantly
arriving, and where, consequently, there is often a necessity, from
their ignorance and accidents, of charity, to provide for able bodied
persons), and the prices of ten different articles of sustenance, at
three different periods:—

WAGES OF LABOUR AND FOOD AT BOSTON.

  -------------------------------------------------------------------
                           |    1836.     |   1840.   |  1843.
                           |    Wages.    |   Wages.  |  Wages.
                           |$1.25 per day.|$1 per day.|$1 per day.
  ----------------------------+--------------+-----------+-----------
                           |   Dollars.   |  Dollars. |  Dollars.
  1 barrel flour           |     9.50     |    5.50   |    4.75
  25 lbs. sugar, at 9c.    |     2.25     |    2.00   |    1.62
  10 gals. molasses, 42½c. |     4.25     |    2.70   |    1.80
  100 lbs. pork            |     4.50     |    8.50   |    5.00
  14 lbs. coffee, 12½c.    |     1.75     |    1.50   |    5.00
  28 lbs. rice             |     1.25     |    1.00   |      75
  1 bushel corn meal       |       96     |      65   |      62
  1 do rye meal            |     1.08     |      83   |      73
  30 lbs. butter, 22c.     |     6.60     |    4.80   |    4.20
  20 lbs. cheese, 10c.     |     2.00     |    1.60   |    1.40
                           |--------------+-----------+-----------
                           |    44.00     |    28.98  |   22.00
  -------------------------------------------------------------------

This shows that in 1836 it required the labour of thirty-four and
a half days to pay for the commodities mentioned; while in 1840 it
required only the labour of twenty-nine days, and in 1843 that of only
twenty-three and a half days to pay for the same. If we compare the
ordinary allowance of food given to slaves per month—as, for instance,
sixteen pounds pork, one bushel corn meal, and, say one quart of
molasses on an average, and a half pint of salt—with that which it is
shown by this table the free labourer is usually able to obtain by a
month’s labour, we can estimate the comparative general comfort of each.

I am not all disposed to neglect the allegation that there is sometimes
great suffering among our free labourers. Our system is by no means
perfect; no one thinks it so: no one objects to its imperfections being
pointed out. There was no subject so much discussed in New York that
winter as the causes, political and social, which rendered us liable to
have labourers, under the worst possible combination of circumstances,
liable to difficulty in procuring satisfactory food.

But this difficulty, as a serious thing, is a very rare and exceptional
one (I speak of the whole of the Free States): that it is so, and
that our labourers are ordinarily better fed and clothed than the
slaves, is evident from their demands and expectations, when they are
deemed to be suffering. When any real suffering does occur, it is
mainly a consequence and a punishment of their own carelessness and
improvidence, and is in the nature of a remedy.

And in every respect, for the labourer, the competitive system, in
its present lawless and uncertain state, is far preferable to the
slave system; and any labourer, even if he were a mere sensualist and
materialist, would be a fool to wish himself a slave.

One New York newspaper, having a very large circulation at the South,
but a still larger at the North, in discussing this matter, last
winter, fearlessly and distinctly declared—as if its readers were
expected to accept the truth of the assertion at once, and without
argument—that the only sufficient prevention of destitution among a
labouring class was to be found in slavery; that there was always an
abundance of food in the Slave States, and hinted that it might yet be
necessary, as a security against famine, to extend slavery over the
present Free States. This article is still being copied by the Southern
papers, as testimony of an unwilling witness to the benevolence and
necessity of the eternal slavery of working people.

The extracts following, from Southern papers, will show what has
occurred in the slave country in the meanwhile:

     “For several weeks past, we have noticed accounts of distress
     among the poor in some sections of the South, for the want of
     bread, particularly in Western Georgia, East and Middle Alabama.
     Over in Coosa, corn-cribs are lifted nightly; and one poor fellow
     (corn thief) lately got caught between the logs, and killed! It
     is said there are many grain-hoarders in the destitute regions,
     awaiting higher prices! The L—d pity the poor, for his brother man
     will not have any mercy upon his brother.”—_Pickens Republican,
     Carrolton, Ala., June 5, 1855._

     “We regret that we are unable to publish the letter of Governor
     Winston, accompanied by a memorial to him from the citizens of
     a portion of Randolph county, showing a great destitution of
     breadstuffs in that section, and calling loudly for relief.

     “The Claiborne _Southerner_ says, also, that great destitution in
     regard to provisions of all kinds, especially corn, prevails in
     some portions of Perry county.”—_Sunny South, Jacksonville, Ala.,
     May 26, 1855._

     “As for wheat, the yield in Talladega, Tallapoosa, Chambers, and
     Macon, is better even than was anticipated. Flour is still high,
     but a fortnight will lower the price very materially. We think
     that wheat is bound to go down to $1.25 to $1.50 per bushel,
     though a fine article commands now $2.25.

     “Having escaped famine—as we hope we have—we trust the planting
     community of Alabama will never again suffer themselves to be
     brought so closely in view of it. Their want of thrift and
     foresight has come remarkably near placing the whole country in
     an awful condition. It is only to a kind Providence that we owe a
     deliverance from a great calamity, which would have been clearly
     the result of man’s short-sightedness.”—_Montgomery Mail, copied
     in Savannah Georgian, June 25, 1855._

     “Wheat crops, however, are coming in good, above an average;
     but oats are entirely cut off. I am issuing commissary, this
     week for the county, to distribute some corn bought by the
     Commissioner’s Court, for the destitute of our county; and could
     you have witnessed the applicants, and heard their stories, for
     the last few days, I am satisfied you could draw a picture that
     would excite the sympathy of the most selfish heart. I am free
     to confess that I had no idea of the destitution that prevails
     in this county. Why, sir, what do you think of a widow and her
     children living, for three days and nights, on boiled weeds,
     called pepper grass?—yet such, I am credibly informed, has been
     the case in Chambers County.”—_From a letter to the editor of the
     Montgomery (Ala.) Journal, from Hon. Samuel Pearson, Judge of
     Probate, for Chambers County, Alabama._

     “FAMINE IN UPPER GEORGIA.—We have sad news from the north part
     of Georgia. The _Dalton Times_ says that many people are without
     corn, or means to procure any. And, besides, there is none for
     sale. In some neighbourhoods, a bushel could not be obtained for
     love or money. Poor men are offering to work for a peck of corn a
     day. If they plead, Our children will starve,’ they are answered,
     ‘So will mine, if I part with the little I have.’ Horses and mules
     are turned out into the woods, to wait for grass, or starve. The
     consequence is, that those who have land can only plant what they
     can with the hoe—they cannot plough. It is seriously argued that,
     unless assisted soon, many of the poor class of that section will
     perish.”—_California Paper._[39]

No approach to anything like such a state of things as those extracts
portray (which extended over parts of three agricultural States) ever
occurred, I am sure, in any rural district of the Free States. Even in
our most thickly-peopled manufacturing districts, to which the staple
articles of food are brought from far-distant regions, assistance from
abroad, to sustain the poor, has never been asked; nor do I believe
the poor have ever been reduced, for weeks together, to a diet of
corn. But this famine at the South occurred in a region where most
productive land can be purchased for from three to seven dollars an
acre; where maize and wheat grow kindly; where cattle, sheep, and hogs,
may be pastured over thousands of acres, at no rent; where fuel has no
value, and at a season of the year when clothing or shelter is hardly
necessary to comfort.

It is a remarkable fact that this frightful famine, unprecedented in
North America, was scarcely noticed, in the smallest way, by any of
those Southern papers which, in the ordinary course of things, ever
reach the North. In the Charleston, Savannah, and Mobile papers,
received at our commercial reading-rooms, I have not been able to find
any mention of it at all—a single, short, second-hand paragraph in a
market report excepted. But these journals had columns of reports from
our papers, and from their private correspondents, as well as pages
of comment, on the distress of the labourers in New York City the
preceding winter.

In 1837, the year of repudiation in Mississippi, a New Orleans editor
describes the effect of the money-pressure upon the planters, as
follows:—

     “They are now left without provisions, and the means of living
     and using their industry for the present year. In this dilemma,
     planters, whose crops have been from 100 to 700 bales, find
     themselves forced to sacrifice many of their slaves, in order to
     get the common necessaries of life, for the support of themselves
     and the rest of their negroes. In many places, heavy planters
     compel their slaves to fish for the means of subsistence, rather
     than sell them at such ruinous rates. There are, at this moment,
     thousands of slaves in Mississippi, that know not where the next
     morsel is to come from. The master must be ruined, to save the
     wretches from being starved.”

Absolute starvation is as rare, probably, in slavery, as in freedom;
but I do not believe it is more so. An instance is just recorded in the
_New Orleans Delta_. Other papers omit to notice it—as they usually do
facts which it may be feared will do discredit to slavery—and even the
_Delta_, as will be seen, is anxious that the responsibility of the
publication should be fixed upon the coroner:

     “INQUEST.—DEATH FROM NEGLECT AND STARVATION.—The body of an old
     negro, named Bob, belonging to Mr. S. B. Davis, was found lying
     dead in the woods, near Marigny Canal, on the Gentilly Road,
     yesterday. The coroner held an inquest; and, after hearing the
     evidence, the jury returned a verdict of ‘Death from starvation
     and exposure, through neglect of his master.’ It appeared from
     the evidence that the negro was too old to work any more, being
     nearly seventy; and so they drove him forth into the woods to
     die. He had been without food for forty-eight hours, when found
     by Mr. Wilbank, who lives near the place, and who brought him
     into his premises on a wheelbarrow, gave him something to eat,
     and endeavoured to revive his failing energies, which had been
     exhausted from exposure and want of food. Every effort to save his
     life, however, was unavailing, and he died shortly after being
     brought to Mr. Wilbank’s. The above statement we publish, as it
     was furnished us by the coroner.”—_Sept. 18, 1855._

This is the truth, then—is it not?—The slaves are generally
sufficiently well-fed to be in tolerable working condition; but not
as well as our free labourers generally are: slavery, in practice,
affords no safety against occasional suffering for want of food
among labourers, or even against their starvation any more than
the competitive system; while it withholds all encouragement from
the labourer to improve his faculties and his skill; destroys his
self-respect; misdirects and debases his ambition, and withholds all
the natural motives which lead men to endeavour to increase their
capacity of usefulness to their country and the world. To all this,
the _occasional suffering_ of the free labourer is favourable, on the
whole. The occasional suffering of the slave has no such advantage. To
deceit, indolence, malevolence, and thievery, it may lead, as may the
suffering—though it is much less likely to—of the free labourer; but
to industry, cultivation of skill, perseverance, economy, and virtuous
habits, neither the suffering, nor the dread of it as a possibility,
ever can lead the slave, as it generally does the free labourer, unless
it is by inducing him to run away.



CHAPTER VII.

COTTON SUPPLY AND WHITE LABOUR IN THE COTTON CLIMATE.


Mr. Russell,[40] although he clearly sees the calamity of the South,
fully accepts the cotton planter’s opinion, that, after all, the system
of slavery is a necessary evil attending upon the great good of cheap
cotton. He says: “If the climate had admitted of the growing of cotton
on the banks of the Ohio, we should have seen that slavery possessed
as great advantages over free labour in the raising of this crop as it
does in that of tobacco.” If this is so, it is important that it should
be well understood why it is so as precisely as possible.

In his Notes on Maryland, Mr. Russell (p. 141) says: “Though a slave
may, under very favourable circumstances, cultivate twenty acres of
wheat and twenty acres of Indian corn, he cannot manage more than two
acres of tobacco. The cultivation of tobacco, therefore, admits of the
concentration of labour, and thus the superintendence and management
of a tobacco plantation will be more perfect and less expensive than a
corn one.” And this is the only explanation he offers of the supposed
advantage of slave labour in the cultivation of tobacco (and of
consequence in the cultivation of cotton). The chief expense of raising
Indian corn is chargeable to planting and tillage, that of tobacco
to the seedbed, the transplanting and nursing of the young plants
(which is precisely similar to the same operation with cabbages),
the hand-weeding, the hoeing after the plant has “become too large
to work without injuring the leaves by the swingle-trees of a horse
plough;”[41] “the topping,” “the suckering,” the selection and removal
of valueless leaves, and “the worming,” all of them, except hoeing,
being operations which can be performed by children and child-bearing
women, as they usually are in Virginia.[42]

The chief expense of raising cotton, as of Indian corn, is that of
planting and tillage. The principal difference between the method of
tillage of cotton and that of Indian corn is occasioned by the greater
luxuriance of weeds in the Southern climate and the slow growth of the
cotton plant in its early stages, which obliges the tillage process
to be more carefully and more frequently performed. For this reason,
the area of cotton cultivated by each labourer is less than of corn.
The area of corn land to a hand is much over-estimated by Mr. Russell.
On the other hand, the only mention he makes of the area of cotton
land to a hand (being the statement of a negro) would lead to the
conclusion that it is often not over three acres, and that five acres
is extraordinary. Mr. De Bow says,[43] in an argument to prove that
the average production per acre is over-estimated, “In the real cotton
region, perhaps the average number of acres per hand is ten.”

Mr. Russell observes of worming and leafing tobacco: “These
operations can be done as well, and consequently as cheaply, by women
and children as by full-grown men.” (Page 142.) After reading Mr.
Russell’s views, I placed myself, through the kindness of Governor
Chase, in communication with the Ohio Board of Agriculture, from which
I have obtained elaborate statistics, together with reports on the
subject from twelve Presidents or Secretaries of County Agricultural
Societies, as well as from others. These gentlemen generally testify
that a certain amount of labour given to corn will be much better
repaid than if given to tobacco. “Men are worth too much for growing
corn to be employed in strolling through tobacco fields, looking
for worms, and even women can, as our farmers think, find something
better to do about the house.” Children, too, are thought to be, and
doubtless are, better employed at school in preparing themselves for
more profitable duties, and this is probably the chief reason why
coarse tobacco[44] cannot be cultivated with as much profit as corn in
Ohio, while the want of intelligent, self-interested labour, is the
reason why the corn-field, among the tall broad blades of which a man
will work during much of its growth in comparative obscurity, cannot be
cultivated with as much profit on soils of the same quality in Virginia
as in Ohio. In short, a class of labourers, who are good for nothing
else, and who, but for this, would be an intolerable burden upon those
who are obliged to support them, can be put to some use in raising
tobacco, and, therefore, coarse tobacco continues to be cultivated
in some of the principal slaveholding counties of Virginia. But this
class of labourers is of no more value in cotton culture than in corn
culture. Mr. De Bow says: “The South-west, the great cotton region,
is newly settled, and the number of children, out of all proportion,
less than in negroes [regions?] peopled, by a natural growth of
population.[45] Weak women and children are, in fact, not at all wanted
for cotton culture, the cotton planter’s inquiry being exclusively for
‘prime boys,’ or ‘A 1 field-hands.’”

Thus in every way cotton culture more resembles corn culture than
it does tobacco culture. The production of corn is larger in the
aggregate, is considerably larger per man engaged in its cultivation,
and is far larger per acre in Ohio than in Virginia.[46] I should,
therefore, be inclined to reverse Mr. Russell’s statement, and to say
that if the climate had admitted of the growing of cotton on both banks
of the Ohio, we should have seen that free-labour possessed as great
advantages over slavery in the cultivation of cotton as of corn.

Mr. Russell echoes also the opinion, which every cotton planter is
in the habit of urging, that the production of cotton would have
been comparatively insignificant in the United States if it had not
been for slave labour. He likewise restricts the available cotton
region within much narrower limits than are usually given to it,
and holds that the slave population must soon in a great measure be
concentrated within it. As these conclusions of a scientific traveller
unintentionally support a view which has been lately systematically
pressed upon manufacturers and merchants both in Great Britain and the
Free States, namely, that the perpetuation of slavery in its present
form is necessary to the perpetuation of a liberal cotton supply, and
also that the limit of production in the United States must be rapidly
approaching, and consequently that the tendency of prices must be
rapidly upward, the grounds on which they rest should be carefully
scrutinized.

Mr. Russell says, in a paragraph succeeding the words just now quoted
with regard to the supposed advantages of slave labour in raising
tobacco:

     “The rich upland soils of the cotton region afford a profitable
     investment for capital, even when cultivated by slaves left to the
     care of overseers. The natural increase of the slaves, from two to
     six per cent., goes far to pay the interest of the money invested
     in them. The richest soils of the uplands are invariably occupied
     by the largest plantations, and the alluvial lands on the banks
     of the western rivers are so unhealthy for white labourers that
     the slaveowners occupy them without competition. Thus the banks
     of the western rivers are now becoming the great cotton-producing
     districts. Taking these facts into consideration, it appears
     that the quantity of cotton which would have been raised without
     slave labour in the United States would have been comparatively
     insignificant to the present supply.”[47]

The advantages of slave-labour for cotton culture seem from this to
have been predicated mainly upon the unwholesomeness to free or white
labourers of the best cotton lands, especially of the alluvial lands
on the banks of rivers. Reference is made particularly to “the county
of Washington, Mississippi State [which] lies between the Yazoo and
Mississippi rivers. * * * The soil is chiefly alluvial, though a
considerable portion is swampy and liable to be flooded.”[48]

Mr. Russell evidently considers that it is to this swampy condition,
and to stagnant water left by floods, that the supposed insalubrity of
this region is to be chiefly attributed. How would he explain, then,
the undoubted salubrity of the bottom lands in Louisiana, which are
lower than those of the Mississippi, exposed to a more southern sun,
more swampy, and which were originally much more frequently flooded,
but having been dyked and “leveed,” are now inhabited by a white
population of several hundred thousand. I will refer to the evidence of
an expert:—

     “Heat, moisture, animal and vegetable matter, are said to be
     the elements which produce the diseases of the South, and yet
     the testimony in proof of the health of the banks of the lower
     portion of the Mississippi river is too strong to be doubted.
     Here is a perfectly flat alluvial country, covering several
     hundred miles, interspersed with interminable lakes, lagunes,
     and jungles, and still we are informed by Dr. Cartwright, one of
     the most acute observers of the day, that this country is exempt
     from miasmatic disorders, and is extremely healthy. His assertion
     has been confirmed to me by hundreds of witnesses; and we know,
     from our own observation, that the population presents a robust
     and healthy appearance.” (Statistics are given to prove a greater
     average length of life for the white race in the South than in
     the North.)—ESSAY ON THE VALUE OF LIFE IN THE SOUTH, by Dr. J. C.
     Nott, of Alabama.

To the same effect is the testimony of a far more trustworthy
scientific observer, Darby, the surveyor and geographer of Louisiana:—

     “Between the 9th of July, 1805, to the 7th of May, 1815,
     incredible as it may appear to many persons, I actually travelled
     [in Southern Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and, what is
     now, Texas] twenty thousand miles, mostly on foot. During the
     whole of this period, I was not confined one month, put all
     my indispositions together, and not one moment by any malady
     attributable to climate. I have slept in the open air for weeks
     together, in the hottest summer nights, and endured this mode of
     life in the most matted woods, perhaps, in the world. During my
     survey of the Sabine river, myself, and the men that attended
     me, existed, for several weeks, on flesh and fish, without bread
     or salt, and without sickness of any kind. That nine-tenths of
     the distempers of warm climate may be guarded against, I do not
     harbour a single doubt.

     “If climate operates extensively upon the actions of human
     beings, it is principally their amusements that are regulated by
     proximity to the tropics. Dancing might be called the principal
     amusement of both sexes, in Louisiana. Beholding the airy sweep of
     a Creole dance, the length of time that an assembly will preserve
     in the sport, at any season of the year, cold or warm, indolence
     would be the last charge that candour could lodge against such a
     people.”[49]

“Copying from Montesquieu,” elsewhere says Mr. Darby, himself a
slaveholder, “climate has been called upon to account for stains on the
human character, imprinted by the hand of political mistake. No country
where Negro Slavery is established but must have parts in the wounds
committed on nature and justice.”

The unacclimated whites on the sea coast and on the river and bayou
banks of the low country, between which and the sea coast there is much
inter-communication, unquestionably suffer much from certain epidemic,
contagious, and infectious pestilences. This, however, only renders
the fact that dense settlements of whites have been firmly established
upon them, and that they are remarkably exempt from miasmatic disease,
one of more value in evidence of the practicability of white occupation
of the upper bottom lands. There are grounds for doubting the common
opinion that the negroes at the South suffer less from local causes of
disease than whites. (See “Seaboard Slave States,” p. 647.) They may
be less subject to epidemic and infectious diseases, and yet be more
liable to other fatal disorders, due to such influences, than whites.
The worst climate for unacclimated whites of any town in the United
States is that of Charleston. (This, together with the whole of the
rice coast, is clearly exceptional in respect of salubrity for whites.)
It happens fortunately that the most trustworthy and complete vital
statistics of the South are those of Charleston. Dr. Nott, commenting
upon these, says that the average mortality, during six years, has
been, of blacks alone, one in forty-four; of whites alone, one in
fifty-eight. “This mortality” he adds, “is perhaps not an unfair test,
as the population during the last six years has been undisturbed by
emigration, and acclimated in greater proportion than at any previous
period.” If the comparison had been made between native negroes and
native or acclimated whites alone, it would doubtless show the climate
to be still more unfavourable to negroes.[50]

Upon the very district to which Mr. Russell refers, as offering an
extreme case, I quote the testimony of a Mississippi statistician:—

     “The cotton-planters, deserting the rolling land, are fast pouring
     in upon the ‘swamp.’ Indeed, the impression of the sickliness of
     the South generally has been rapidly losing ground [_i. e._ among
     the whites of the South] for some years back, and that blessing
     [health] is now sought with as much confidence on the swamp lands
     of the Yazoo and the Mississippi as among the hills and plains of
     Carolina and Virginia.”—(De Bow’s “Resources,” vol. ii., p. 43.)

Dr. Barton says:—

     “In another place I have shown that the direct temperature of
     the sun is not near so great in the South (during the summer) as
     it is at the North. I shall recur to this hereafter. In fact,
     the climate is much more endurable, all the year round, with our
     refreshing breezes, and particularly in some of the more elevated
     parts of it, or within one hundred miles of the coast, both in and
     out of doors, at the South than at the North, which shows most
     conspicuously the folly of the annual summer migrations, to pursue
     an imaginary mildness of temperature, which is left at home.”

Mr. Russell assumes that slave labour tends, as a matter of course, to
the formation of large plantations, and that free labour can only be
applied to agricultural operations of a limited scope. Of slaves, he
says: “Their numbers admit of that organization and division of labour
which renders slavery so serviceable in the culture of cotton.” I find
no reason given for this assertion, except that he did not himself see
any large agricultural enterprises conducted with free labour, while
he did see many plantations of fifty to one hundred slave hands. The
explanation, in my judgment, is that the cultivation of the crops
generally grown in the Free States has hitherto been most profitable
when conducted on the “small holding” system;[51] the cultivation of
cotton is, as a general rule, more profitable upon the “large holding”
system.[52] Undoubtedly there is a point below which it becomes
disadvantageous to reduce the farm in the Free States, and this varies
with local circumstances. There is equally a limit beyond which it is
acknowledged to be unprofitable to enlarge the body of slaves engaged
in cotton cultivation under one head. If cotton were to be cultivated
by free labour, it is probable that this number would be somewhat
reduced. I have no doubt that the number of men on each plantation, in
any case, would, on an average, much nearer approach that which would
be most economical, in a free-labour cotton-growing country than in a
country on which the whole dependence of each proprietor was on slaves.
Is not this conclusion irresistible when we consider that the planter,
if he needs an additional slave hand to those he possesses, even if
temporarily, for harvesting his crop, must, in most cases, employ at
least a thousand dollars of capital to obtain it?

Mr. Russell has himself observed that—

     “The quantity of cotton which can be produced on a [slave-worked]
     plantation is limited by the number of hands it can turn into the
     field during the picking or harvesting of the crop. Like some
     other agricultural operations, this is a simple one, though it
     does not admit of being done by machinery, as a certain amount of
     intelligence must direct the hand.”

The same is true of a wheat farm, except that much more can be done
by machinery, and consequently the extraordinary demand for labour at
the wheat harvest is much less than it is on a cotton plantation. I
have several times been on the Mississippi plantation during picking
time, and have seen how everything black, with hands, was then pressed
into severe service; but, after all, I have often seen negroes
breaking down, in preparation for re-ploughing the ground for the next
crop, acres of cotton plants, upon which what appeared to me to be a
tolerable crop of wool still hung, because it had been impossible to
pick it. I have seen what was confessed to be many hundred dollars’
worth, of cotton thus wasted on a single Red-River plantation. I much
doubt if the harvest demand of the principal cotton districts of
Mississippi adds five per cent. to their field-hand force. In Ohio,
there is a far larger population ordinarily engaged in other pursuits
which responds to the harvest demand. A temporary increase of the
number of agricultural labourers thus occurs of not less than forty per
cent. during the most critical period.

An analogous case is that of the vintage in the wine districts of
France. In some of these the “small holding” or _parcellement_ system
is carried to an unfortunate extreme under the influence of what are,
perhaps, injudicious laws. The parcels of land are much smaller, on
an average, than the smallest class of farms ordinarily cultivated by
free labour in the United States. But can any one suppose that if the
slave labour system, as it exists in the United States, prevailed in
those districts, that is to say, if the proprietors depended solely on
themselves, their families, and their regular servants, as those of
Mississippi must, at the picking time, there would not be a disastrous
falling off in the commerce of those districts? Substitute the French
system, unfortunate as in some respects it is, for the Mississippi
system in cotton growing, and who will doubt that the cotton supply of
the United States would be greatly increased?

Hop picking and cotton picking are very similar operations. The former
is the more laborious, and requires the greater skill. What would the
planters of Kent do if they had no one but their regular labourers to
call upon at their harvest season?

I observed this advantage of the free labour system exemplified
in Western Texas, the cotton fields in the vicinity of the German
village of New Braunfels having been picked, when I saw them, far
closer than any I had before seen, in fact, perfectly clean, having
been undoubtedly gleaned, by the poor emigrants. I was told that some
mechanics made more in a day, by going into the field of a slaveowner
and picking side by side with his slaves, being paid by measure,
than they could earn at their regular work in a week. The degree of
intelligence and of practice required to pick to advantage was found to
be very slight, less, very much, than in any single operation of wheat
harvesters. One woman was pointed out to me who had, in the first year
she had ever seen a cotton field, picked more cotton in a day than any
slave in the county.

I am reminded, as this page is about to be stereotyped, by observing
the letter of a cotton planter in the New Orleans Price Current, of
another disadvantage for cotton production, of slave labour, or rather
of the system which slavery induces. In my volume on Texas, I stated
that I was informed by a merchant that the cotton picked by the free
labour of the Germans was worth from one to two cents a pound more
than that picked by slaves in the same township, by reason of its
greater cleanliness. From the letter referred to, I make the following
extracts:—

     “DEAR SIR: * * * There are probably no set of men engaged in any
     business of life who take as little pains and care to inform
     themselves with regard to the character and quality of their
     marketable produce as the cotton-planter. Not one in a thousand
     knows, nor cares to know, whether the cotton he sends to market is
     ordinary, good ordinary, or middling. Not one in a hundred spends
     one hour of each day at his gin in ginning season; never sees
     the cotton after it is gathered, unless he happens to ride near
     the scaffold and looks from a distance of a hundred yards, and
     declares the specimen very white and clean, when, perhaps, it, on
     the contrary, may be very leafy and dirty. * * *

     “I have often seen the hands on plantations picking cotton with
     sacks that would hardly hold stalks, they were so torn and full
     of holes; these sacks dragging on the ground and gathering up
     pounds of dirt at every few steps. The baskets, too, were with
     scarcely any bottoms remaining, having been literally worn out,
     the cotton lying on the ground. Indeed, some overseers do not
     forbid the hands emptying their cotton on the ground when their
     sacks are full, and they some distance from their baskets. When
     this cotton is taken up, some dirt must necessarily come with it.
     When gathering in wet weather, the hands get into their baskets
     with muddy feet, and thus toss in some pounds of dirt, in this way
     making their task easier. These things are never, or rarely, seen
     by the proprietor: and, consequently, when his merchant writes him
     that his cotton is a little dusty, he says how can it be? you are
     surely mistaken.

     “Now, sir, for all this there is one simple, plain remedy; let the
     planter spend his time in ginning season at his gin; let him see
     every load of cotton as it comes from the field and before it goes
     through the gin. But, says the man of leisure, the gin is a dirty,
     dusty place. Yes, sir, and always will be so, until you remedy the
     evil by staying there yourself. You say your overseer is hired to
     do this dirty work. _Your overseer is after quantity, sir, and the
     more extra weight he gets in your cotton, the more bales he will
     have to brag of having made at the end of the year. Don’t trust
     him at the gin._ * * *

     “Probably he has a conditional contract with his employer: _gets
     so many dollars for all he makes over a certain number of bales;
     thus having every inducement to put up as much leaf and dirt, or,
     if he is one of the dishonest kind, he may add stones, if they
     should abound in the neighbourhood_.

     “Why will not the cotton-planter take pride in his own production?
     The merchant prides himself on his wares; the mechanic on the work
     of his hands. All seem to pride themselves on the result of their
     labour except the cotton-planter.” * * *

It cannot be admitted that the absence in the Free States of that
organization and division of labour in agriculture which is found on a
large slave-worked plantation is a necessity attending the use of free
labour. Why should it be any more impossible to employ an army of free
labourers in moving the ground with an agricultural design than with
the intention of constructing a canal or a road, if it were profitable
to so employ the necessary capital? A railroad contractor in one of the
best cotton districts of the United States told me, that having begun
his work with negroes, he was substituting Irish and German labourers
for them as rapidly as possible, with great advantage (and this near
midsummer). But if I were convinced with Mr. Russell upon this point,
I should still be inclined to think that the advantages which are
possessed in a free labour state of society equally by the great
hop-planters at picking time and the _petits proprietaires_ at vintage,
which are also found in our own new States by the wheat farmer, and
which are not found under the present system anywhere at the South, for
cotton picking, would of themselves be sufficient to turn the scale in
favour of the free-labour cotton grower.

The error of the assumption by Mr. Russell, that large gangs of
unwilling labourers are essential or important to cotton production in
the United States, is, I trust, apparent. And as to the more common and
popular opinion, that the necessary labour of cotton tillage is too
severe for white men in the cotton-growing climate, I repeat that I
do not find the slightest weight of fact to sustain it. The necessary
labour and causes of fatigue and vital exhaustion attending any part,
or all, of the process of cotton culture does not compare with that of
our July harvesting; it is not greater than attends the cultivation
of Indian corn in the usual New England method. I have seen a weakly
white woman the worse for her labour in the cotton field, but never a
white man, and I have seen hundreds of them at work in cotton fields
under the most unfavourable circumstances, miserable, dispirited
wretches, and of weak muscle, subsisting mainly, as they do, on corn
bread. Mr. De Bow estimates one hundred thousand white men now engaged
in the cultivation of cotton, being one ninth of the whole cotton
force (numerically) of the country.[53] I have just seen a commercial
letter from San Antonio, which estimates that the handful of Germans in
Western Texas will send ten thousand bales of cotton, the production
of their own labour, to market this season. If it should prove to be
but half this, it must be considered a liberal contribution to the
needed supply of the year, by those who, following Mr. Russell, have
considered Western Texas out of the true cotton region, and taking
the truth of the common planters’ assertion for granted, have thought
Africans, working under physical compulsion, the only means of meeting
the demand which could be looked to in the future of the United States.

It would not surprise me to learn that the cultivation of cotton by
the German settlers in Texas had not, after all, been as profitable
as its cultivation by the planters employing slaves in the vicinity.
I should attribute the superior profits of the planter, if any there
be, however, not to the fitness of the climate for negro labour, and
its unfitness for white labour, but to the fact that his expenses for
fencing, on account of his larger fields and larger estate, are several
hundred per cent. less than those of the farmer; to the fact that his
expenses for tillage, having mules and ploughs and other instruments to
use at the opportune moment, are less than those of the farmer, who,
in many cases, cannot afford to own a single team; to the fact that he
has, from experience, a better knowledge of the most successful method
of cultivation; to the fact that he has a gin and a press of his own in
the midst of his cotton fields, to which he can carry his wool at one
transfer from the picking; by which he can put it in order for market
expeditiously, and at an expense much below that falling upon the
farmer, who must first store his wool, then send it to the planter’s
gin and press and have it prepared at the planter’s convenience,
paying, perhaps, exorbitantly therefor; and, finally, to the fact that
the planter deals directly with the exporter, while the farmer, the
whole profit of whose crop would not pay his expenses in a journey
to the coast, must transfer his bale or two to the exporter through
two or three middle-men, carrying it one bale at a time, to the local
purchaser. Merchants will never give as good prices for small lots as
for large. There are reasons for this which I need not now explain. I
consider, in short, that the disadvantages of the farmer in growing
cotton are of the same nature as I have before explained with those
which long ago made fire-wood of hand-looms, and paupers of those who
could be nothing else but hand-loom weavers, in Massachusetts. Exactly
how much is gained by the application of labour with the advantage
of capital and combination of numbers over its isolated application
as directed by individuals without capital in a slaveholding region,
I cannot estimate, but no one will doubt that it is considerable.
Nevertheless, in all the cotton climate of the United States, if a
white farmer has made money without slaves, it will be found that
it has been, in most cases, obtained exclusively from the sale of
cotton. If cotton is a plant the cultivation of which by free or white
labour is especially difficult, how is it that, with the additional
embarrassments arising from a lack of capital, his gains are almost
exclusively derived from his cotton crop?

But I may be asked, if combination is what is needed to make cotton a
source of more general prosperity at the South, why is there no such
thing as a joint-stock cotton plantation in Mississippi, as there are
joint-stock cotton mills in Massachusetts, the stock in which is in
large part owned by those employed in them? I ask, in reply, how is
it that the common way of obtaining breadstuffs in Northern Alabama
is to sow three pecks of seed wheat on hard stubble ground, plough
it under with unbroken bullocks, led with a rope, and a bull-tongue
plough, and finally to garner rarely so much as six bushels from an
acre? How is it that while in Ohio the spinning-wheel and hand-loom
are curiosities, and homespun would be a conspicuous and noticeable
material of clothing, half the white population of Mississippi still
dress in homespun, and at every second house the wheel and loom are
found in operation? The same influences which condemn the majority of
free labourers in Alabama to hand-looms, homespun, and three hundred
pounds of wheat to the acre, as the limit of production, also condemn
them to isolated labour, poor soil, poor tools, bad management, “bad
luck,” small crops, and small profits in cotton culture.

The following passages from a letter published in the _New York Times_
present convincing evidence that it is no peculiarity of the Western
Texas climate, but only the exceptional social condition with which
its people are favoured, that enables free white labour to be employed
in increasing the cotton production of the country. I have ascertained
that the author of the letter is known to the editor of the _Times_,
and is esteemed a gentleman of veracity and trustworthy judgment.

     “I am well acquainted with Eastern Mississippi, south of Monroe
     county, and there are few settlements where my name or face is
     unknown in the following counties, over the greater part of which
     I have ridden on horseback, to wit: Loundes, Oktibleha, Choctaw,
     Carroll, Attalla, Winston, Noxubee, Kemper, Nashoba, Leake, Scott,
     Newton, Lauderdale, Clarke, Smith, and Jasper. After four years’
     travel through these counties, transacting business with great
     numbers of their inhabitants, stopping at their houses, conversing
     much with them, and viewing their mode of living, I unhesitatingly
     answer that white men can and do labour in the cotton field, from
     Christmas to Christmas following; and that there, as elsewhere,
     prudence, industry, and energy find their universal reward:
     success and wealth.

     “In the counties of Choctaw, Winston, Nashoba, Newton, and
     Smith, there are very few large plantations; most of those having
     slaves holding but two or three, while those who own none are
     in the majority; yet these are all cotton-growing counties, and
     the staple of their cotton, poor as their lands are, is equal to
     the average sold in the Mobile market. Where the young farmer is
     enterprising and go-ahead, his cotton is usually superior. * * *

     “The rich lands where white labour, even in small numbers, might
     be profitable, are either in the hands of large planters, or too
     heavily timbered for a single man. The only thing now preventing
     any poor white man in the South from gaining a fair competence,
     and even attaining wealth, is his own laziness, shiftlessness, and
     ignorance; for the small planters in the counties I have mentioned
     are deplorably ignorant. * * *

     “There is one case I remember, which is to the point; the man
     lives in Choctaw county, and was born in Georgia. He does not own
     a negro, but has two boys, one sixteen, the other twelve. With
     the assistance of these boys, and the most imperfect agricultural
     implements, he made twenty-two bales of cotton, year before
     last, plenty of corn, and sufficient small grain for himself and
     family, although the season was more than ordinarily bad in his
     neighbourhood, while many of his neighbours, with five or six
     slaves, did not exceed him, and some made even less. He went on
     to his place without ten dollars in his pocket, gave his notes
     for eight hundred dollars, payable in one, two, and three years’
     time, with interest at six per cent. per annum, and the ensuing
     year he purchased another one hundred and sixty acres for seven
     hundred and fifty dollars, also on time. This man is, however, far
     more intelligent and progressive in farming than those about him;
     he does not plant as did his grandfather, because his father did
     so, but endeavours to improve, and is willing to try an experiment
     occasionally.

     “In my own county, in Alabama, there is a woman whose husband died
     shortly after the crop was planted, leaving her without a single
     servant, and no assistance except from a little son of twelve
     years of age: yet she went into the field, ploughed and picked
     her cotton, prepared her ground for the coming crop, and raised a
     second crop thereon.”

My conclusion, from the various evidences to which I have referred,
must be a widely different one from Mr. Russell’s, from that which is
generally thought to prevail with our leading capitalists, merchants,
and manufacturers, and from that which seems to have been accepted
by the Cotton Supply Associations of Liverpool and Manchester. It is
this: that there is no physical obstacle in the way of our country’s
supplying ten bales of cotton where it now does one. All that is
necessary for this purpose is to direct to the cotton-producing region
an adequate number of labourers, either black or white, or both. No
amalgamation, no association on equality, no violent disruption of
present relations is necessary. It is not even requisite that both
black and white should work in the cotton fields. It is necessary that
there should be more objects of industry, more varied enterprises, more
general intelligence among the people, and especially that they should
become, or should desire to become, richer, more comfortable, than they
are.

The simple truth is, that even if we view in the brightest light
of Fourth of July patriotism, the character of the whites of the
cotton-producing region, and the condition of the slaves, we cannot
help seeing that, commercially speaking, they are but in a very small
part a civilized people. Undoubtedly a large number of merchants have
had, at times, a profitable business in supplying civilized luxuries
and conveniences to the South. The same is true of Mexico, of Turkey,
of Egypt, and of Russia. Silk, cloth, and calico, shoes, gloves, and
gold watches, were sold in some quantity in California, before its
golden coffers were forcibly opened ten years ago. The Southern supply
to commerce and the Southern demand of commerce is no more what it
should be, comparing the resources of the South with those of other
lands occupied by an active civilized community, than is that of
any half-civilized community, than was that of California. Give the
South a people moderately close settled, moderately well-informed,
moderately ambitious, and moderately industrious, somewhat approaching
that of Ohio, for instance, and what a business it would have! Twenty
double-track railroads from the Gulf to the lakes, and twenty lines
of ocean steamers, would not sufficiently meet its requirements. Who
doubts, let him study the present business of Ohio, and ask upon what,
in the natural resources of Ohio, or its position, could, forty years
ago, a prediction of its present wealth and business have been made,
of its present supply and its present demand have been made, which
would compare in value with the commercial resources and advantages of
position possessed to-day by any one of the Western cotton States?[54]



CHAPTER VIII.

THE CONDITION AND CHARACTER OF THE PRIVILEGED CLASSES OF THE SOUTH.


Since the growth of the cotton demand has doubled the value of slave
labour, and with it the pecuniary inducement to prevent negroes from
taking care of themselves, hypotheses and easy methods for justifying
the everlasting perpetuation of slavery have been multiplied. I have
not often conversed with a planter about the condition of the slaves,
that he did not soon make it evident, that a number of these were on
service in his own mind, naïvely falling back from one to another,
if a few inquiries about matters of fact were addressed him without
obvious argumentative purpose. The beneficence of slavery is commonly
urged by an exposition not only of the diet, and the dwellings, and
the jollity, and the devotional eloquence of the negroes, but also by
demonstrations of the high mental attainments to which individuals
are already found to be arriving. Thus, there is always at hand, some
negro mathematician, who is not merely held to be far in advance of
the native Africans, but who beats most white men in his quickness and
accuracy in calculation, and who is at the same time considered to be
so thoroughly trustworthy, that he is constantly employed by his master
as an accountant and collecting agent; or some negro whose reputation
for ingenuity and skill in the management and repair of engines,
sugar-mills, cotton-presses, or other machinery, is so well established
that his services are more highly valued, throughout a considerable
district, than any white man’s; or some negro who really manages his
owner’s plantation, his agricultural judgment being deferred to, as
superior to that of any overseer or planter in the county. Scarcely
a plantation did I visit on which some such representative black man
was not acknowledged and made a matter of boasting by the owner, who,
calling attention perhaps to the expression of intelligence and mien
of self-confidence which distinguished his premium specimen, would
cheerfully give me a history of the known special circumstances,
practically constituting a special mental feeding, by which the
phenomenon was to be explained. Yet it might happen that the same
planter would presently ask, pointing to the brute-like countenance of
a moping field-hand, what good would freedom be to such a creature? And
this would be one who had been provided from childhood with food, and
shelter, and clothing, with as little consideration of his own therefor
as for the air he breathed; who had not been allowed to determine
for himself with whom he should associate; with what tools and to
what purpose he should labour; who had had no care on account of his
children; who had no need to provide for old age; who had never had
need to count five-and-twenty; the highest demand upon whose faculties
had been to discriminate between cotton and crop-grass, and to strike
one with a hoe without hitting the other; to whose intelligence, though
living in a civilized land, the pen and the press, the mail and the
telegraph, had contributed nothing; who had no schooling as a boy; no
higher duty as a man than to pick a given quantity of cotton between
dawn and dark; and of whom, under this training and these confinements,
it might well be wondered that he was found able to understand and to
speak the language of human intelligence any more than a horse.

Again, one would assure me that he had witnessed in his own time an
obvious advance in the quality of the slaves generally; they were more
active, less stupid, employed a larger and more exact vocabulary, and
were less superstitious, obstinate, and perverse in their habits of
mind than when he was himself a boy; but I had only to presume that,
with this rapid improvement, the negroes would soon be safely allowed
to take some step toward freedom, to be assured with much more apparent
confidence than before, that in the special quality which originally
made the negro a slave, there had been no gain; that indeed it was
constantly becoming more evident that he was naturally too deficient in
forecasting capacity to be able to learn how to take civilized care of
himself.

As a rule, when the beneficence of slavery is argued by Southerners,
an advancing intellectual as well as moral condition of the mass of
negroes is assumed, and the high attainments of individuals are pointed
to as evidence of what is to be expected of the mass, if the system
is not disturbed. Suggest that any modification of the system would
enlarge its beneficence, however, and an exception to the general
rule, as regards the single quality of providence, is at once alleged,
and in such a manner, that one cannot but get the impression that, in
this quality, the negro is believed to be retrograding as surely as he
is advancing in everything else; and this is one method by which the
unconditional perpetuation of the system, as it is, is justified. Such
a justification must of course involve the supposition that in the
tenth generation of an unremitted training, discipline, education, and
custom in abject dependence upon a voluntary provision by others, for
every wish of which the gratification is permitted, _white_ men would
be able, as a rule, to _gain_ in the quality of providence and capacity
for independent self-support.

As to the real state of the case, I find, in my own observation, no
reason for doubting, what must be expected of those interested, that
the general improvement of the slave is usually somewhat overrated,
and his forecasting ability underrated. Measures intended to prevent
a man from following his natural inclinations often have the effect
of stimulating those inclinations; and I believe that the system
which is designed not merely to relieve the negro from having any
care for himself, but, as far as practicable, to forcibly prevent him
from taking care of himself, in many particulars to which he has more
or less instinctive inclination, instead of gradually suppressing
this inclination, to some extent stimulates it, so that the Southern
negro of to-day, however depraved in his desires, and however badly
instructed, is really a man of more cunning, shrewdness, reticence, and
persistence, in what he does undertake for himself, than his father
was. The healthful use of these qualities (which would constitute
providence) is, however, in general, successfully opposed by slavery,
and, as far as the slave is concerned, nothing worse than this can be
said of the system.

Admitting that, in this view, slavery is not beneficent, or is no
longer beneficent, or can be but for a time beneficent to the slave,
the present attitude of the South still finds a mode of justification
with many minds, in the broad assertion that the negro is not of the
nature of mankind, therefore cannot be a subject of inhumanity. This,
of course, sweeps the field, if it does anything: thus (from the
Day-Book)—

     “The wide-spread delusion that Southern institutions are an evil,
     and their extension dangerous—the notion so prevalent at the North
     that there is a real antagonism, or that the system of the South
     is hostile to Northern interests; the weakened union sentiment,
     and the utter debauchment, the absolute traitorism of a portion
     of the Northern people, not only to the Union, but to Democratic
     institutions, and to the cause of civilization on this continent;
     all these, with the minor and most innumerable mischiefs that this
     mighty world-wide imposture has engendered or drags in its midst,
     rest upon the dogma, the single assumption, the sole elementary
     foundation falsehood, that a negro is a black man.”

This bold ground is not as often taken at the South as by desperate
bidders for Southern confidence among ourselves. I have heard Christian
men, however, when pushed for a justification of the sealing up of the
printed Bible, of the legal disregard of marriage, of giving power to
rascally traders to forcibly separate families, and so on, refer to
it as a hypothesis not at all to be scouted under such circumstances.
Yet, as they did so, there stood behind their chairs, slaves, in
whose veins ran more Anglo-Saxon blood than of any African race’s
blood, and among their other slaves, it is probable there were many
descendants of Nubians, Moors, Egyptians, and Indians, all interbred
with white and true negro tribes, so that it would be doubtful if there
remained one single absolutely pure negro, to which animal alone their
argument would strictly apply. If the right or expediency of denying
the means of preparing themselves for freedom to these beings could
even be held to be coexistent with the evident preponderance in them
of certain qualities of form, colour, etc., the number of those who
are held unjustly or inexpediently in the bonds of a perpetual slavery
is already quite large in the South, and is gradually but surely
increasing—is increasing much more rapidly than are their means of
cultivating habits which are necessary to be cultivated, before the
manliest child of white men is capable of enjoying freedom.

There are but two methods of vindicating the habit of depending on
the labour of slaves for the development of wealth in the land, which
appear to me, on the face of them, entitled to be treated gravely. One
of these, assuming the beings held in slavery to be as yet generally
incompetent to take care of themselves in a civilized manner, and
dangerous to the life as well as to the wealth of the civilized people
who hold them in slavery, argues that it is necessary for their humane
maintenance, and to prevent them from acquiring an increase of the
disposition and strength of mind and will which has always been felt
a source of danger to the well-being of their masters, that all the
present laws for their mental repression should be rigidly maintained.
It is not to be denied, I think, that there is some ground for this
assumption. Inasmuch as it is also argued that the same necessity
requires that these beings, and with them all these laws, should be
carried on to territory now free from them, we are called upon to give
a sober consideration to the argument which is based upon it. This I
shall do in the last chapter. The other method to which I refer assumes
that by having a well-defined class set apart for drudging and servile
labour, the remainder of a community may be preserved free from the
demeaning habits and traits of character which, it is alleged, servile
and menial obligations and the necessity of a constant devotion to
labour are sure to fix upon those who are subject to them. Hence a
peculiar advantage in morals and in manners is believed to belong to
the superior class of a community so divided. I am inclined to think
that there is no method of justifying slavery, which is more warmly
cherished by those interested to maintain it, than this. I am sure
that there is none which planters are more ready to suggest to their
guests.[55]

No sensible man among us shuts his eyes to the ignorance, meanness,
vice, and misery which accompanies our general prosperity; no class
of statesmen, no politicians or demagogues, no writers deny or ignore
it. It is canvassed, published, studied, struggled with, by all
honest men, and this not in our closets alone, but in our churches,
our legislatures, our colleges, our newspapers, our families. We are
constantly urging, constantly using means for discovering it and
setting it forth plainly. We commission able men to make a business of
bringing it to the light, and we publish the statistics which their
labours supply as legislative documents to be circulated at the general
expense, in order that our misfortune may be as well known and as
exactly comprehended as possible.

From much of all this, which so painfully and anxiously concerns us,
we are told that the South is free. We are told that what we bewail is
seen at the South to be the result of a mistaken social system; that
the South escapes that result by slavery. We do not deny, we daily
acknowledge that there are mistakes in our system; we endeavour to
remedy them; and we not unfrequently have to acknowledge that in doing
so, we have made some of our bad things worse. Does slavery relieve
all? And without compensation? We often find, upon a thorough review,
that our expedients, while they have for a time seemed to produce
very valuable results, have in fact corrected one evil by creating or
enhancing another. We have borrowed from Peter to pay Paul. In this
way we find investigation and discussion to be constantly essential
to prevent errors and mistakes from being exaggerated and persevered
in unnecessarily. Thus we—our honestly humane part at least—are ever
calling for facts, ever publishing, proclaiming, discussing the facts
of our evil. It is only those whose selfish interest is thought by
themselves to be served by negligence, who resist investigation
and publication, who avoid discussion. Thus we come to habitually
associate much activity of discussion, much consideration, much
publication with improvement—often no doubt erroneously—still it is
natural and rational that when we find no discussion of facts, no
publication, no consideration, where we find general consideration and
general discussion practically prevented by a forcible resistance to
publication, we cannot but suspect there is something sadly needing
to be made better. And this last we do find to be the case at the
South, and with regard to slavery. Why, if their system has such
tangible evidence of its advantages within the personal knowledge of
any citizen, do they object to its alleged disadvantages being set
forth for consideration, and, if it should happen, discussion? True, we
may be wrong, we may be mistaken in supposing that this, our constant
publication and challenge to discussion is a good thing. Perhaps if
we were better, we should talk less, know less of what evil remained
to be gradually grown out of. It might be found that the constant
consideration of our evil had had a bad effect upon us. But I have
not found that the people of the South are inclined to shut their
eyes, and close their ears, and bar their imaginations to the same
evil. With the misery which prevails among us, Southerners generally
appear to be, indeed, more familiar than the most industrious of our
home philanthropists. Great as it is, it is really over-estimated at
the South—over-estimated in the aggregate at least; for it is perhaps
impossible to over-estimate the sufferings of individuals. South of
Virginia, an intelligent man or woman is rarely met who does not
maintain, with the utmost apparent confidence, that the people who do
the work of the North are, on the whole, harder driven, worse fed, and
more destitute of comfort than are the slaves at the South, taking
an average of both classes; and this I heard assumed by gentlemen,
the yearly cost of maintaining whose own slaves, according to their
statement to me, would not equal the average monthly expenses of an
equal number of the poorest class of labourers I have ever known at
the North. I have heard it assumed by planters, who not only did not
themselves enjoy, but who never imagined or aspired to a tithe of
the comfort to which most journeymen mechanics whom I have known are
habituated. I have heard it assumed by gentlemen, nine-tenths of whose
neighbours for a hundred miles around them lived in a manner which, if
witnessed at the North, would have made them objects of compassion to
the majority of our day-labourers.

A gentleman coming up the Mississippi, just after a recent “Southern
Commercial Convention” at Memphis, says:

     “For three days I have been sitting at a table three times a day
     opposite four of the fire-eaters. * * * It was evident that they
     were sincere: for they declared to one another the belief that
     Providence was directing the South to recommence the importation
     of Africans, that she might lead the world to civilization and
     Christianity through its dependence upon her soil for cotton.
     All their conversation was consistent with this. They believed
     the South the centre of Christianity and the hope of the world,
     while they had not the slightest doubt that the large majority of
     the people of the North were much more to be pitied than their
     own negroes. Exclusive of merchants, manufacturers, lawyers, and
     politicians, they evidently imagined the whole population of the
     North to be quite similar to the poor white population of the
     South. Yet they had travelled in the North, it appeared. I could
     only conclude that their observation of northern working men
     had been confined to the Irish operatives of some half-finished
     western railroad, living in temporary shanties along the route.”

I have even found that conservative men, who frankly acknowledged the
many bad effects of slavery, and confessed the conviction that the
Northern Slave States were ruined by it; men who expressed admiration
of Cassius Clay’s course, and acknowledged no little sympathy with his
views, and who spoke with more contempt of their own fanatics than of
the Abolitionists themselves; that such men were inclined to apologize
for slavery, and for their own course in acting politically for its
extension and perpetuation, by assuming certain social advantages to
exist where it prevailed. “There is a higher tone in Southern society
than at the North,” they would say, “which is, no doubt, due to the
greater leisure which slavery secures to us. There is less anxiety for
wealth, consequently more honesty. This also leads to the habit of more
generous living and of hospitality, which is so characteristic of the
South.”

I think that there is a type of character resulting in a secondary
way from slavery, of which Mr. Clay is himself a noble example, which
attracts admiration and affection in a rare manner. I shall explain
this secondary action of slavery by-and-by. I have come to the
conclusion that whatever may be the good results of slavery in the
way I shall then describe, this so constantly asserted, so generally
conceded, of inducing a “higher tone” of breeding, and especially of
nourishing the virtue of hospitality, is chimerical.

Some reader may at once be inclined to say that the Southerners whom
he has met are unquestionably better bred people than are common at the
North, and that they state as their experience that they do not find
that hospitality, that honesty, that guilelessness of dealing one with
another among the people of the North, to which they are accustomed
at home. It would remain a question, whether the Southerners whom
the reader has met are of a common or an exceptional class; whether
it is to slavery, or to some other circumstance, they owe their
breeding; whether this other circumstance is dependent on slavery,
or whether it may exist (and, if so, whether, when it does exist, it
produces the same fruit) quite independently of slavery. It cannot be
said that there are no gentlemen and gentlewomen of first water in
free countries. A comparison, then, must be a comparison of numbers.
I shall, by-and-by, offer the reader some assistance in making a
comparison of this kind. And if, as we hear, free-labour society is
still an experiment, and one of the results of that experiment is to
be found in the low condition of portions of our community, and it is
by comparing this result with the condition of the whites of the South
that we must judge of the success of the experiment; it may again be
a question of numbers. As to experience of hospitality, that is not a
question of quantity or of quality merely. I should wish to ask the
reader’s Southern authorities, “Where and with whom has your experience
been, North and South?” And if with a similar class and in similar
circumstances, I should wish to ask further, “What do you mean by
hospitality?”

I think that the error which prevails in the South, with regard to
the general condition of our working people, is much strengthened
by the fact, that a different standard of comfort is used by most
persons at the South from that known at the North, and that used by
Northern writers. People at the South are content and happy with a
condition which few accept at the North unless with great complaint,
or with expressions of resignation such as are the peculiar property
of slaves at the South. If, reader, you had been travelling all day
through a country of the highest agricultural capability, settled more
than twenty years ago, and toward nightfall should be advised by a
considerate stranger to ride five miles further, in order to reach the
residence of Mr. Brown, because Mr. Brown, being a well-to-do man, and
a right good fellow, had built an uncommonly good house, and got it
well furnished, had a score of servants, and being at a distance from
neighbours, was always glad to entertain a respectable stranger—after
hearing this, as you continued your ride somewhat impatiently in the
evening chill, what consolations would your imagination find in the
prospect before you? My New England and New York experience would
not forbid the hope of a private room, where I could, in the first
place, wash off the dust of the road, and make some change of clothing
before being admitted to a family apartment. This family room would
be curtained and carpeted, and glowing softly with the light of sperm
candles or a shaded lamp. When I entered it, I could expect that a
couch or an arm-chair, and a fragrant cup of tea, with refined sugar,
and wholesome bread of wheaten flour, leavened, would be offered me. I
should think it likely that I could then have the snatch of Tannhäuser
or Trovatore, which had been running faintly in my head all day,
fingered clearly out to my entire satisfaction upon a pianoforte. I
should then look with perfect confidence to being able to refer to
Shakespeare, or Longfellow, or Dickens, if anything I had seen or
thought during the day had haply led me to wish to do so. I should
expect, as a matter of course, a clean, sweet bed, where I could sleep
alone and undisturbed, “until possibly in the morning a jug of hot
water should be placed at my door, to aid the removal of a traveller’s
rigid beard. I should expect to draw a curtain from before a window, to
lift the sash without effort, to look into a garden and fill my lungs
with fragrant air; and I should be certain when I came down of a royal
breakfast. A man of these circumstances in this rich country, he will
be asking my opinion of his fruits. A man of his disposition cannot
exist in the country without ladies, and ladies cannot exist in the
country without flowers; and might I not hope for the refinement which
decks even the table with them? and that the breakfast would be a meal
as well as a feed—an institution of mental and moral sustenance as well
as of palatable nourishment to the body? My horse I need hardly look
after, if he be a sound brute;—good stables, litter, oats, hay, and
water, grooming, and discretion in their use, will never be wanting in
such a man’s house in the country.”

In what civilized region, after such advice, would such thoughts be
preposterous, unless in the Slave States? Not but that such men and
such houses, such family and home comforts may be found in the South.
I have found them a dozen of them, delightful homes. But then in a
hundred cases where I received such advice, and heard houses and men
so described, I did not find one of the things imagined above, nor
anything ranging with them. In my last journey of nearly three months
between the Mississippi and the Upper James River, I saw not only
none of those things, received none of those attentions, but I saw
and met nothing of the kind. Nine times out of ten, at least, after
such a promise, I slept in a room with others, in a bed which stank,
supplied with but one sheet, if with any; I washed with utensils common
to the whole household; I found no garden, no flowers, no fruit, no
tea, no cream, no sugar, no bread; (for corn pone—let me assert, in
parenthesis, though possibly, as tastes differ, a very good thing of
its kind for ostriches—is not bread: neither does even flour, salt,
fat, and water, stirred together and warmed, constitute bread;) no
curtains, no lifting windows (three times out of four absolutely no
windows), no couch—if one reclined in the family room it was on the
bare floor—for there were no carpets or mats. For all that, the house
swarmed with vermin. There was no hay, no straw, no oats (but mouldy
corn and leaves of maize), no discretion, no care, no honesty, at the
—— there was no stable, but a log-pen; and besides this, no other
out-house but a smoke-house, a corn-house, and a range of nigger houses.

In nine-tenths of the houses south of Virginia, in which I was
obliged, making all reasonable endeavour to find the best, to spend
the night, there were none of these things. And most of these had
been recommended to me by disinterested persons on the road as being
better than ordinary—houses where they “sot up for travellers and had
things.” From the banks of the Mississippi to the banks of James, I
did not (that I remember) see, except perhaps in one or two towns,
a thermometer, nor a book of Shakespeare, nor a pianoforte or sheet
of music; nor the light of a carcel or other good centre-table or
reading-lamp, nor an engraving or copy of any kind, of a work of art
of the slightest merit. I am not speaking of what are commonly called
“poor whites;” a large majority of all these houses were the residences
of shareholders, a considerable proportion cotton-planters.

Those who watch the enormous export of cotton from the South, and who
are accustomed to reckon up its value, as it goes forward, million on
million, hundred million on hundred million, year after year, say that
it is incomprehensible, if it be not incredible, that the people of
the South are not rich and living in luxury unknown elsewhere. It is
asking too much that such statements as I have made should be received
without any explanation. I have found this to be so, and so far as the
explanation appears in the attendant social phenomena of the country, I
shall endeavour to set it forth, sustaining the accuracy of my report
by the evidence of competent Southern witnesses.

William H. Gregg, Esq., a distinguished citizen of Charleston,
South Carolina, in a report to the directors of the Graniteville
Manufacturing Company of that State, describes at length the condition
of the operatives of the company, whom he states to have been drawn
originally “from the poor of Edgefield, Barnwell and Lexington
districts.” These are cotton-growing districts of South Carolina,
better supplied than usual with the ordinary advantages of civilized
communities. For instance, by reference to the census returns, I find
that they are provided with public schools at the rate of one to
less than thirty square miles, while within the State, inclusive of
its several towns, there is but one public school, on an average, to
every forty square miles. There are churches within these districts,
one to about seventeen square miles; throughout the State, including
Charleston and its other cities, one to every twenty-five square
miles. In Georgia the average is one to thirty-two square miles. With
the condition of the newer cotton States, in these respects, that of
Edgefield, Barnwell, and Lexington, would be found to compare still
more favourably for the poor. In Lexington there is even a theological
seminary. What, nevertheless, there is not generally available to
the people at large, Mr. Gregg indicates by his statement of what
advantages they possess who have come to Graniteville.

     “When they were first brought together, the _seventy-nine_ out
     of a hundred grown girls who could neither read nor write were
     a by-word around the country; that reproach has long since
     been removed. We have night, Sunday, and week-day schools.
     Singing-masters, music-teachers, writing-masters, and itinerant
     lecturers all find patronage in Graniteville where the people can
     easily earn all the necessaries of life, and are in the enjoyment
     of the usual luxuries of country life.” * * *

     “To get a steady supply of workmen, a population must be collected
     _which will regard themselves as a community_; and two essential
     elements are necessary to the building up, moral growth, and
     stability of such a collection of people, namely, a church and a
     school-house.” * * *

     “I can safely say that it is only necessary to make _comfortable
     homes_ in order to procure families, that will afford labourers
     of the best kind. A large manufacturing establishment located
     anywhere in the State, away from a town and in a healthy
     situation, will soon collect around it a population who, however
     poor, with proper moral restraints thrown around them, will soon
     develope all the elements of good society. Self-respect and
     attachment to the place will soon find their way into the minds of
     such, while intelligence, morality, and well directed industry,
     _will not fail to acquire position_.”

What the poor people of Edgefield, Barnwell, and Lexington districts
needed was, in the first place, to be led “to regard themselves as a
community;” for this purpose the nuclei of “a church and a schoolhouse”
are declared to be essential, to which must be added, such other
stimulants to improvement as “singing and writing schools, itinerant
lecturers,” etc., etc. In short, the power of obtaining, as the result
of their labour, “the necessaries of life,” “the usual luxuries of
country life,” or, in two words, which cover and include church,
school, music and lecture, as well as bread, cleanliness, luxuries and
necessities, “comfortable homes.” It was simply by making possible to
them what before had not been possible, the essential conditions of a
comfortable civilized home, that Mr. Gregg was enabled in a few years
to announce, as he did, that, “from extreme poverty and want, they have
become a thrifty, happy, and contented people.”

The present system of American slavery, notwithstanding the enormous
advantages of wealth which the cotton monopoly is supposed to offer,
prevents the people at large from having “comfortable homes,” in
the sense intended by Mr. Gregg. For nine-tenths of the citizens,
comfortable homes, as the words would be understood by the mass of
citizens of the North and of England, as well as by Mr. Gregg, are,
under present arrangements, out of the question.

Examine almost any rural district of the South, study its history,
and this will be as evident as it was to Mr. Gregg in the case of
those to which his attention was especially called. These, to be sure,
contained, probably, a large proportion of very poor soil. But how is
it in a district of entirely rich soil? Suppose it to be of twenty
square miles, with a population of six hundred, all told, and with an
ordinarily convenient access by river navigation to market. The whole
of the available cotton land in this case will probably be owned by
three or four men, and on these men the demand for cotton will have
had, let us suppose, its full effect. Their tillage land will be
comparatively well cultivated. Their houses will be comfortable, their
furniture and their food luxurious. They will, moreover, not only have
secured the best land on which to apply their labour, but the best
brute force, the best tools, and the best machinery for ginning and
pressing, all superintended by the best class of overseers. The cotton
of each will be shipped at the best season, perhaps all at once, on a
boat, or by trains expressly engaged at the lowest rates of freight.
It will everywhere receive special attention and care, because it
forms together a parcel of great value. The merchants will watch the
markets closely to get the best prices for it, and when sold the cash
returns to each proprietor will be enormously large. As the expenses
of raising and marketing cotton are in inverse ratio to the number
of hands employed, planters nearly always immediately reinvest their
surplus funds in slaves; and as there is a sufficient number of large
capitalists engaged in cotton-growing to make a strong competition for
the limited number of slaves which the breeding States can supply, it
is evident that the price of a slave will always be as high as the
product of his labour, under the best management, on the most valuable
land, and with every economical advantage which money can procure, will
warrant.

But suppose that there are in the district besides these three or four
large planters, their families and their slaves, a certain number of
whites who do not own slaves. The fact of their being non-slaveholders
is evidence that they are as yet without capital, in this case one
of two tendencies must soon be developed. Either being stimulated by
the high price of cotton they will grow industrious, will accumulate
capital and purchase slaves, and owning slaves will require a larger
amount of land upon which to work them than they require for their own
labour alone, thus being led to buy out one of the other planters, or
to move elsewhere themselves before they have acquired an established
improvement of character from their prosperity; or, secondly, they
will not purchase slaves, but either expend currently for their own
comfort, or hoard the results of their labour. If they hoard they will
acquire no increase of comfort or improvement of character on account
of the demand. If they spend all their earnings, these will not be
sufficient, however profitable their cotton culture may be supposed, to
purchase luxuries much superior to those furnished to the slaves of the
planters, because the local demand, being limited to some fifty white
families, in the whole district of twenty square miles, is not enough
to draw luxuries to the neighbourhood, unless they are brought by
special order, and at great expense from the nearest shipping port. Nor
is it possible for such a small number of whites to maintain a church
or a newspaper, nor yet a school, unless it is one established by a
planter, or two or three planters, and really of a private and very
expensive character.

Suppose, again, another district in which either the land is
generally less productive or the market less easy of access than in
the last, or that both is the case. The stimulus of the cotton demand
is, of course, proportionately lessened. In this case, equally with
the last, the richest soils, and those most convenient to the river
or the railroad, if there happens to be much choice in this respect,
will assuredly be possessed by the largest capitalists, that is, the
largest slaveholders, who may nevertheless be men of but moderate
wealth and limited information. If so, their standard of comfort will
yet be low, and their demand will consequently take effect very slowly
in increasing the means of comfort, and rendering facilities for
obtaining instruction more accessible to their neighbours. But suppose,
notwithstanding the disadvantages of the district in its distance from
market, that their sales of cotton, the sole export of the district,
are very profitable, and that the demand for cotton is constantly
increasing. A similar condition with regard to the chief export of a
free labour community would inevitably tend to foster the intelligence
and industry of a large number of people. It has this effect with only
a very limited number of the inhabitants of a plantation district
consisting in large part as they must of slaves. These labourers may
be driven to work harder, and may be furnished with better tools for
the purpose of increasing the value of cotton which is to be exchanged
for the luxuries which the planter is learning to demand for himself,
but it is for himself and for his family alone that these luxuries
will be demanded. The wages—or means of demanding home comfort—of the
workmen are not at all influenced by the cotton demand: the effect,
therefore, in enlarging and cheapening the local supply of the means of
home comfort will be almost inappreciable, while the impulse generated
in the planter’s mind is almost wholly directed toward increasing the
cotton crop through the labour of his slaves alone. His demand upon the
whites of the district is not materially enlarged in any way. The slave
population of the district will be increased in number, and its labour
more energetically directed, and soon the planters will find the soil
they possess growing less productive from their increasing drafts upon
it. There is plenty of rich unoccupied land to be had for a dollar an
acre a few hundred miles to the West, still it is no trifling matter to
move all the stock, human, equine, and bovine, and all the implements
and machinery of a large plantation. Hence, at the same time, perhaps,
with an importation from Virginia of purchased slaves, there will be an
active demand among the slaveholders for all the remaining land in the
district on which cotton can be profitably grown. Then sooner or later,
and with a rapidity proportionate to the effect of the cotton demand,
the white population of the district divides, one part, consisting
of a few slaveholders, obtains possession of all the valuable cotton
land, and monopolizes for a few white families all the advantages of
the cotton demand. A second part removes with its slaves, if it possess
any, from the district, while a third continues to occupy the sand
hills, or sometimes perhaps takes possession of the exhausted land
which has been vacated by the large planters, because they, with all
their superior skill and advantages of capital, could not cultivate it
longer with profit.[56]

The population of the district, then, will consist of the large
landowners and slaveowners, who are now so few in number as to be
unnoticeable either as producers or consumers; of their slaves, who
are producers but not consumers (to any important extent), and of this
forlorn hope of poor whites, who are, in the eyes of the commercial
world, neither producers nor consumers. The contemplation from a
distance of their condition, is a part of the price which is paid
by those who hold slavery to be justifiable on the ground that it
maintains a race of gentlemen. Some occasionally flinch for a moment,
in observing it, and vainly urge that something should be done to
render it less appalling. Touching their ignorance, for instance, said
Governor Seabrooke of South Carolina, addressing the Legislature of
that State, years ago:—

     “Education has been provided by the Legislature, but for one
     class of the citizens of the State, which is the wealthy class.
     For the middle and poorer classes of society it has done nothing,
     since no organized system has been adopted for that purpose.
     You have appropriated seventy-five thousand dollars annually
     to free schools; but, under the present mode of applying it,
     that liberality is really the profusion of the prodigal, rather
     than the judicious generosity which confers real benefit. The
     few who are educated at public expense in those excellent and
     truly useful institutions, the Arsenal and Citadel Academies
     [military schools], form almost the only exception to the truth
     of this remark. Ten years ago, twenty thousand adults, besides
     children, were unable to read or write, in South Carolina. Has
     our free-school system dispelled any of this ignorance? Are there
     not any reasonable fears to be entertained that the number has
     increased since that period?”

Since then, Governor Adams, in another message to the South Carolina
Legislature, vainly urging the appointment of a superintendent of
popular education, said:—

     “Make, at least, this effort, and if it results in nothing—if, in
     consequence of insurmountable difficulties in our condition, no
     improvement can be made on the present system, and the poor of the
     land are hopelessly doomed to ignorance, poverty, and crime—you
     will, at least, feel conscious of having done your duty, and the
     public anxiety on the subject will be quieted.”

It is not unnatural that there should be some anxiety with at least
that portion of the public not accustomed to look at public affairs in
the large way of South Carolina legislators, when the travelling agent
of a religious tract society can read from his diary in a church in
Charleston, such a record as this:—

     “Visited sixty families, numbering two hundred and twenty-one
     souls over ten years of age; only twenty-three could read, and
     seventeen write. Forty-one families destitute of the Bible.
     Average of their going to church, once in seven years. Several,
     between thirty and forty-five years old, had heard but one or
     two sermons in their lives. Some grown-up youths had never heard
     a sermon or prayer, until my visit, and did not know of such a
     being as the Saviour; and boys and girls, from ten to fifteen
     years old, did not know who made them. All of one family rushed
     away when I knelt to pray, to a neighbour’s, begging them to tell
     what I meant by it. Other families fell on their faces, instead of
     kneeling.”[57]

The following is written by a gentleman, “whose name,” says the editor
of De Bow’s “Review,” “has long been illustrious for the services he
has rendered to the South.”

     “All of you must be aware of the condition of the class of people
     I allude to. What progress have they made in the last hundred
     years, and what is to be their future condition, unless some mode
     of employment be devised to improve it? A noble race of people!
     reduced to a condition but little above the wild Indian of the
     forest, or the European gipsy, without education, and, in many
     instances, unable to procure the food necessary to develop the
     natural man. They seem to be the only class of people in our State
     who are not disposed to emigrate to other countries, while our
     wealthy and intelligent citizens are leaving us by scores, taking
     with them the treasures which have been accumulated by mercantile
     thrift, as well as by the growth of cotton and the consequent
     exhaustion of the soil.”

Says Governor Hammond, also of South Carolina, in an address before the
South Carolina Institute:—

     “According to the best calculations which, in the absence of
     statistic facts, can be made, it is believed that, of the 300,000
     _white_ inhabitants of South Carolina, there are not less than
     50,000, whose industry, such as it is, and compensated as it is,
     is not, in the present condition of things, and does not promise,
     hereafter, to be, adequate to procure them, honestly, such a
     support as every white person in this country is and feels himself
     entitled to.

     “Some cannot be said to work at all. They obtain a precarious
     subsistence by occasional jobs, by hunting, by fishing, sometimes
     by plundering fields or folds, and, too often, by what is, in
     its effects, far worse—trading with slaves, and seducing them to
     plunder for their benefit.”

In another part of the same address, Governor Hammond says, that “$18
or, at the most $19, will cover the whole necessary annual cost of a
full supply of wholesome and palatable food, purchased in the market;”
meaning, generally, in South Carolina. From a comparison of these two
extracts, it will be evident that $19 per annum is high wages for the
labour of one-sixth of all the white population of South Carolina—and
that one-sixth exclusive of the classes not obliged to labour for their
living.

South Carolina affords the fairest example of the tendency of the
Southern policy, because it is the oldest cotton State, and because
slavery has been longest and most strongly and completely established
there. But the same laws are seen in operation leading to the same
sure results everywhere. Some carefully compiled statistics of the
seaboard district of Georgia will be found in Appendix (D), showing the
comparative condition of the people in the rich sea-island counties,
and those in their rear, the latter consisting in large proportion of
poor or worn-out lands. I recapitulate here the more exact of these
statistics:—

_Population._—A large majority of the whole white population resides
within the barren counties, of which the slave population is less than
one-fourteenth that of the aggregate slave population of the whole.

_Wealth._—The personal estate of the whites of these upper counties is,
on an average, less than one-sixth that of the others.

_Education._—As the wealthy are independent of public schools, the
means of education are scarcely more available for those who are not
rich in one than the other, the school-houses being, on an average,
ten and a half miles apart in the less populous, thirteen and
three-quarters miles apart in the more populous.

_Religion._—It is widely otherwise as to churches. In the planting
counties, there is a house of worship for every twenty-nine white
families; in the poor white counties, one for every one hundred and
sixty-two white families. Notwithstanding the fact, that to accommodate
all, the latter should be six times as large, their average value is
less than one-tenth that of the others; the one being eight hundred and
ninety-eight dollars, the other eighty-nine dollars.

_Commerce._—So wholly do the planters, in whose hands is the wealth,
depend on their factors for direct supplies from without, the capital
invested in trade, in the coast counties, is but thirty-seven and a
half cents to each inhabitant, and in the upper counties it is but one
dollar and fifty cents. From the remarks on temperance it would seem
that the most of this capital must be held in the form of whiskey.
One “store” in Liberty county, which I myself entered, contained, so
far as I could see, nothing but casks, demijohns, decanters, a box of
coffee, a case of tobacco, and some powder and lead; and I believe that
nine-tenths of the stock in trade referred to in these statistics is of
this character. It was mentioned to me by a gentleman who had examined
this district with a commercial purpose, that, off the plantations,
there was no money in the country—almost literally, no money. The
dealings even of the merchants or tradesmen seemed to be entirely by
barter. He believed there were many full-grown men who had never seen
so much as a dollar in money in their lives.

The following is a graphic sketch by a native Georgian of the present
appearance of what was once the most productive cotton land of the
State:—

     “The classic hut occupied a lovely spot, overshadowed by majestic
     hickories, towering poplars, and strong-armed oaks. The little
     plain on which it stood was terminated, at the distance of about
     fifty feet from the door, by the brow of a hill, which descended
     rather abruptly to a noble spring, that gushed joyously forth
     from among the roots of a stately beech, at its foot. The stream
     from this fountain scarcely burst into view, before it hid itself
     in the dark shade of a field of cane, which overspread the dale
     through which it flowed, and marked its windings, until it turned
     from sight, among vine-covered hills, at a distance far beyond
     that to which the eye could have traced it, without the help of
     its evergreen belt. A remark of the captain’s, as we viewed this
     lovely country, will give the reader my apology for the minuteness
     of the foregoing description: ‘These lands,’ said he, ‘will
     never wear out. Where they lie level, they will be just as good,
     fifty years hence, as they are now.’ Forty-two years afterwards,
     I visited the spot on which he stood when he made the remark.
     The sun poured his whole strength upon the bald hill which once
     supported the sequestered school-house; many a deep-washed gully
     met at a sickly bog, where had gushed the limpid fountain; a dying
     willow rose from the soil which had nourished the venerable beech;
     flocks wandered among the dwarf pines, and cropped a scanty meal
     from the vale where the rich cane had bowed and rustled to every
     breeze, and all around was barren, dreary, and cheerless.”[58]

I will quote from graver authority: Fenner’s Southern Medical Reports:—

     “The native soil of Middle Georgia is a rich argillaceous loam,
     resting on a firm clay foundation. In some of the richer counties,
     nearly all the lands have been cut down, and appropriated to
     tillage; a large maximum of which have been worn out, leaving a
     desolate picture for the traveller to behold. Decaying tenements,
     red, old hills, stripped of their native growth and virgin soil,
     and washed into deep gullies, with here and there patches of
     Bermuda grass and stunted pine shrubs, struggling for subsistence
     on what was once one of the richest soils in America.”

Let us go on to Alabama, which was admitted as a State of the Union
only so long ago as 1818.

In an address before the Chunnenuggee Horticultural Society, by Hon. C.
C. Clay, Jr., reported by the author in De Bow’s “Review,” December,
1815, I find the following passage. I need add not a word to it to show
how the political experiment of the Carolinas, and Georgia, is being
repeated to the same cursed result in young Alabama. The author, it is
fair to say, is devoted to the sustentation of Slavery, and would not,
for the world, be suspected of favouring any scheme for arresting this
havoc of wealth, further than by chemical science:—

     “I can show you, with sorrow, in the older portions of Alabama,
     and in my native county of Madison, the sad memorials of the
     artless and exhausting culture of cotton. Our small planters,
     after taking the cream off their lands, unable to restore them by
     rest, manures, or otherwise, are going further west and south, in
     search of other virgin lands, which they may and will despoil and
     impoverish in like manner. _Our wealthier planters, with greater
     means and no more skill, are buying out their poorer neighbours,
     extending their plantations, and adding to their slave force. The
     wealthy few, who are able to live on smaller profits, and to give
     their blasted fields some rest, are thus pushing off the many, who
     are merely independent_.

     “Of the twenty millions of dollars annually realized from the
     sales of the cotton crop of Alabama, nearly all not expended in
     supporting the producers is reinvested in land and negroes. Thus
     the white population has decreased, and the slave increased,
     almost _pari passu_ in several counties of our State. In 1825,
     Madison county cast about 3,000 votes; now she cannot cast
     exceeding 2,300. _In traversing that county one will discover
     numerous farm-houses, once the abode of industrious and
     intelligent freemen, now occupied by slaves, or tenantless,
     deserted, and dilapidated; he will observe fields, once
     fertile, now unfenced, abandoned, and covered with those evil
     harbingers—fox-tail and broom-sedge; he will see the moss growing
     on the mouldering walls of once thrifty villages: and will find
     ‘one only master grasps the whole domain’ that once furnished
     happy homes for a dozen white families. Indeed, a country in
     its infancy, where, fifty years ago, scarce a forest tree had
     been felled by the axe of the pioneer is already exhibiting the
     painful signs of senility and decay apparent in Virginia and the
     Carolinas; the freshness of its agricultural glory is gone; the
     vigour of its youth is extinct, and the spirit of desolation seems
     brooding over it._”

What inducement has capital in railroads or shops or books or tools to
move into districts like this, or which are to become like this? Why,
rather, I shall be asked, does it not withdraw more completely? Why do
not all, who are able, remove from a region so desolate? Why was not
its impoverishment more complete, more simultaneous? How is it that any
slaveholders yet remain? The “venerable Edmund Ruffin,” president of
the Virginia State Agricultural Society, shall answer:[59]

     “The causes are not all in action at once, and in equal progress.
     The labours of exhausting culture, also, are necessarily suspended
     as each of the cultivators’ fields is successively worn out.
     And when tillage so ceases, and any space is thus left at rest,
     nature immediately goes to work to recruit and replace as much as
     possible of the wasted fertility, until another destroyer, after
     many years, shall return, again to waste, and in much shorter time
     than before, the smaller stock of fertility so renewed. Thus the
     whole territory, so scourged, is not destroyed at one operation.
     But though these changes and partial recoveries are continually,
     to some extent counteracting the labours for destruction, still
     the latter work is in general progress. It may require (as it did
     in my native region) more than two hundred years, from the first
     settlement, to reach the lowest degradation. But that final result
     is not the less certainly to be produced by the continued action
     of the causes.”

As to the extent to which the process is carried, Mr. Gregg says:[60]

     “I think it would be within bounds to assume that the planting
     capital withdrawn within that period [the last twenty-five years]
     would, judiciously applied, have drained every acre of swamp land
     in South Carolina, besides resuscitating the old, worn-out land,
     and doubling the crops—thus more than quadrupling the productive
     power of the agriculture of the State.”

It would be consoling to hope that this planters’ capital in the new
region to which it is driven were used to better results. Does the
average condition of the people of western Louisiana and Texas, as I
have exhibited it to the reader in a former chapter, justify such a
hope? When we consider the form in which this capital exists, and the
change in the mode of its investment which is accomplished when it is
transferred from South Carolina, we perceive why it does not.

If we are told that the value of one hundred thousand dollars has been
recently transferred from Massachusetts to a certain young township of
Illinois, we reasonably infer that the people of this township will be
considerably benefited thereby. We think what an excellent saw mill
and grist mill, what an assortment of wares, what a good inn, what a
good school, what fine breeding stock, what excellent seeds and fruit
trees, what superior machinery and implements, they will be able to
obtain there now; and we know that some of these or other sources of
profit, convenience, and comfort to a neighbourhood, are almost certain
to exist in all capital so transferred. In the capital transferred
from South Carolina, there is no such virtue—none of consequence. In a
hundred thousand dollars of it there will not be found a single mill,
nor a waggon load of “store goods;” it will hardly introduce to the
neighbourhood whither it goes a single improvement, convenience, or
comfort. At least ninety thousand dollars of it will consist in slaves,
and if their owners go with them it is hard to see in what respect
their real home comfort is greater.

We must admit, it is true, that they are generally better satisfied,
else this transfer would not be so unremitting as it is. The motive
is the same at the North as at the South, the prospect of a better
interest from the capital, and if this did not exist it would not
be transferred. Let us suppose that, at starting, the ends of the
capitalist are obtained equally in both cases, that a sale of produce
is made, bringing in cash twenty thousand dollars; suppose that five
thousand dollars of this is used in each case for the home comfort of
the owners, and that as much immediate comfort is attainable with it
in the one case as in the other. What, then, is done with the fifteen
thousand dollars? At the South, it goes to pay for a farther transfer
of slaves purchased in the East, a trifle also for new tools. At the
North, nearly all of it will go to improvement of machinery of some
kind, machinery of transfer or trade, if not of manufacture, to the
improvement of the productive value of whatever the original capital
had been invested in, much of it to the remuneration of talent, which
is thus enabled to be employed for the benefit of many people other
than these capitalists—for the home comfort of many people. If five
thousand dollars purchased no more comfort in the one case than the
other, at starting, in a few years it will purchase double as much. For
the fifteen thousand dollars which has gone East in the one case to pay
for more labour, will, in the other, have procured good roads and cheap
transportation of comforts, or shops and machinery, and thus the cheap
manufacture of comforts on the spot where they are demanded. But they
who sell the reinforcement of slaves, and to whom comes the fifteen
thousand dollars, do they have no increase of home comfort? Taking
into consideration the gradual destruction of all the elements of home
comfort which the rearing and holding of those slaves has occasioned in
the district from which they are sold, it may be doubtful if, in the
end, they do. Whither, then, does this capital go? The money comes to
the country from those who buy cotton, and somebody must have a benefit
of it. Who? Every one at the South says, when you ask this, it is the
Northern merchant, who, in the end, gets it into his own hands, and it
is only him and his whom it benefits. Mr. Gregg apparently believes
this. He says, after the sentence last quoted from him, describing the
transfer of capital to the West from South Carolina:—

     “But this is not all. Let us look for a moment at the course of
     things among our mercantile classes. We shall not have to go
     much further back than twenty-five years to count up twenty-five
     millions of capital accumulated in Charleston, and which has left
     us with its enterprising owners, who have principally located in
     northern cities. This sum would build factories enough to spin
     and weave every pound of cotton made in the State, besides making
     railroads to intersect every portion of the up-country, giving
     business facilities to the remotest points.”

How comes this capital, the return made by the world for the cotton
of the South, to be so largely in the hands of Northern men? The
true answer is, that what these get is simply their fair commercial
remuneration for the trouble of transporting cotton, transporting
money, transporting the total amount of home comfort, little as it is,
which the South gets for its cotton, from one part of the country to
the other (chiefly cotton to the coast, and goods returned instead of
money from the coast to the plantations), and for the enormous risks
and advances of capital which are required in dealing with the South.
Is this service over paid? If so, why do not the planters transfer
capital and energy to it from the plantations? It is not so. Dispersed
and costly labour makes the cost of trade or transfer enormous (as it
does the cost of cotton producing). It is only when this wealth is
transferred to the Free States or to Europe that it gives great results
to human comfort and becomes of great value. The South, as a whole,
has at present no advantage from cotton, even planters but little. The
chief result of the demand for it, as far as they are concerned, is to
give a fictitious value to slaves.

Throughout the South-west I found men, who either told me themselves,
or of whom it was said by others, that they settled where I found them,
ten or fifteen years ago, with scarcely any property beyond half a
dozen negroes, who were then indeed heavily in debt, but who were now
quite rich men, having from twenty to fifty negroes. Nor is this at
all surprising, when it is considered that cotton costs nothing but
labour, the value of the land, however rich, being too inconsiderable
to be taken into account, and that the price of cotton has doubled in
ten years. But in what else beside negroes were these rich men better
off than when they called themselves poor? Their real comfort, unless
in the sense of security against extreme want, or immunity from the
necessity of personal labour to sustain life, could scarcely have been
increased in the least. There was, at any rate, the same bacon and
corn, the same slough of a waggon channel through the forest, the same
bare walls in their dwellings, the same absence of taste and art and
literature, the same distance from schools and churches and educated
advisers, and—on account of the distance of tolerable mechanics, and
the difficulty of moving without destruction, through such a rough
country, anything elaborate or finely finished—the same make-shift
furniture. There were, to be sure, ploughs and hoes, and gins and
presses, and there were scores of very “likely negroes.” Whoever sold
such of these negroes as had been bought must have been the richer, it
will be said. But let us see.

The following picture of the condition of Virginia, the great breeding
ground of slaves, is drawn by the last governor of that State, Henry
A. Wise. It was addressed to a Virginia audience, who testified to its
truthfulness.

     “You have had no commerce, no mining, no manufactures.

     “You have relied alone on the single power of agriculture—and such
     agriculture! Your sedge-patches outshine the sun. Your inattention
     to your only source of wealth has scared the very bosom of mother
     earth. Instead of having to feed cattle on a thousand hills, you
     have had to chase the stump-tailed steer through the sedge-patches
     to procure a tough beef-steak.

     “The present condition of things has existed too long in Virginia.
     The landlord has skinned the tenant, and the tenant has skinned
     the land, until all have grown poor together. I have heard a
     story—I will not locate it here or there—about the condition of
     the prosperity of our agriculture. I was told by a gentleman in
     Washington, not long ago, that he was travelling in a county
     not a hundred miles from this place, and overtook one of our
     citizens on horseback, with, perhaps, a bag of hay for a saddle,
     without stirrups, and the leading line for a bridle, and he said:
     ‘Stranger, whose house is that?’ ‘It is mine,’ was the reply. They
     came to another. ‘Whose house is that?’ ‘Mine, too, stranger.’ To
     a third: ‘And whose house is that?’ ‘That’s mine, too, stranger;
     but don’t suppose that I’m so darned poor as to own all the land
     about here.’”

But more to the purpose is the following statement of “the venerable
Edmund Ruffin,” President of the Virginia Agricultural Society.

     “A gang of slaves on a farm will increase to four times their
     original number in thirty or forty years. If a farmer is only
     able to feed and maintain his slaves, their increase in value may
     double the whole of his capital originally invested in farming
     before he closes the term of an ordinary life. But few farms are
     able to support this increasing expense, and also furnish the
     necessary supplies to the family of the owner; whence very many
     owners of large estates, in lands and negroes, are throughout
     their lives too poor to enjoy the comforts of life, or to incur
     the expenses necessary to improve their unprofitable farming. A
     man so situated may be said to be a slave to his own slaves. If
     the owner is industrious and frugal, he may be able to support
     the increasing numbers of his slaves, and to bequeath them
     undiminished to his children. But the income of few persons
     increases as fast as their slaves, and, if not, the consequence
     must be that some of them will be sold, that the others may be
     supported, and the sale of more is perhaps afterwards compelled
     to pay debts incurred in striving to put off that dreaded
     alternative. The slave at first almost starves his master, and at
     last is eaten by him—at least, he is exchanged for his value in
     food.”

A large proportion of the negroes sold to these South-western planters,
then, had probably been bought by traders at forced sales in the older
States, sales forced by merchants who had supplied the previous owners
of the negroes, and who had given them credit, not on account of the
productive value of their property as then situated, but in view of its
cash value for sale, that is, of the value which it would realize when
applied to cotton on the new soils of the South-west.

The planters of the South-west are then, in fact, supplying the deficit
of Eastern production, taking their pay almost entirely in negroes. The
free West fills the deficit of the free Eastern cereal production, but
takes its pay in the manufactured goods, the fish, the oil, the butter,
and the importations of the free East.

Virginia planters owning twenty to forty slaves, and nominally worth
as many thousand dollars, often seem to live generously; but according
to Northern standards, I do not think that the comforts and advantages
for a rationally happy life, which they possess, compare with those of
the average of Northern farmers of half that wealth. When they do, they
must be either supplying slaves for the new cotton fields or living on
credit—credit based on an anticipation of supplying that market.

Of course it cannot be maintained that no one, while living at the
South, is actually richer from the effects of the cotton demand. There
are a great many very wealthy men at the South, and of planters, as
well as land dealers, negro dealers, and general merchants, but, except
in or near those towns which are, practically, colonies of free labour,
having constant direct communication and intimate relationship with
free countries, the wealth of these more fortunate people secures to
them but a small proportion of the advantages which belong to the same
nominal wealth anywhere in the Free States, while their number is so
small that they must be held of no account at all in estimating the
condition of the people, when it is compared with the number of those
who are exceedingly destitute, and at whose expense, quite as much as
at the expense of their slaves, the wealth of the richer class has been
accumulated.

This cannot be rightly deemed extravagant or unjust language. I should
not use it if I did not feel satisfied that it was warranted, not
only by my own personal observations, but by the testimony of persons
whose regard for the pride of the South, whose sympathy with wealthy
planters, and whose disposition not to underrate the good results of
slavery, if not more sincere than mine, is more certain not to be
doubted. I quote, for instance, a single passage from the observations
of Mr. Russell, an English gentleman, who, travelling with a special
view of studying the agricultural condition and prospects of the
country, was, nevertheless, so much limited in time that he was obliged
to trust in a great degree to the observations of planters for his
facts.

     “In travelling through a fertile district in any of the Southern
     States, the appearance of things forms a great contrast to that
     in similar districts in the Free States. During two days’ sail on
     the Alabama river from Mobile to Montgomery, I did not see so many
     houses standing together in any one spot as could be dignified
     with the appellation of village:[61] but I may possibly have
     passed some at night. There were many places where cotton was
     shipped and provisions were landed, still there were no signs of
     enterprise to indicate that we were in the heart of a rich cotton
     region. * * * The planters supply themselves directly through
     agents in the large towns, and comparatively little of the money
     drawn for the cotton crop is spent in the Southern States. Many of
     the planters spend their incomes by travelling with their families
     in the Northern States or in Europe during the summer, and a large
     sum is required to pay the hog-raiser in Ohio, the mule-breeder in
     Kentucky, and, above all, the Northern capitalists who have vast
     sums of money on mortgage over the estates. _Dr. Cloud, the editor
     of the Cotton Plant_ [Alabama], assured me that after all these
     items are paid out of the money received for the whole cotton crop
     and sugar crops of the South, there did not remain one-fourth
     part of it to be spent in the Southern States. Hence, the Slave
     States soon obtain a comparatively stationary condition, and,
     further, the progress they make is in proportion to the increase
     of freemen, whose labour is rendered comparatively unproductive,
     seeing that the most fertile land is occupied by slaveholders.”[62]

I questioned the agent of a large land speculation in Mississippi, a
Southerner by birth, with regard to the success of small farmers. In
reply he made the following statement, allowing me to take notes of it,
understanding they were for publication:—

     “The majority of our purchasers have been men without capital.
     To such we usually sell one hundred and sixty acres of land, at
     from two to three dollars an acre, the agreement being to pay
     in one, two, and three years, with six per cent. interest. It
     is very rare that the payments are made when due, and much the
     largest proportion of this class fail even to pay their interest
     punctually. Many fail altogether, and quit their farms in about
     ten years. When crops are generally good, and planters in the same
     neighbourhood make seven bales to a hand, poor people will not
     make over two bales, with their whole family. There is —— ——, in
     —— county, for instance. We sold him one hundred and sixty acres
     of land in 1843. He has a family of good-sized boys—young men now.
     For ten years he was never able to pay his interest. He sold from
     two to four bales a year, but he did not get much for it, and
     after taking out the cost of bagging and rope, and ginning and
     pressing, he scarcely ever had two hundred dollars a year coming
     to him, of which he had to pay his store bills, chiefly for coffee
     and molasses, sometimes a little clothing—some years none at all.
     They made their own cloth mostly in the house, but bought sheeting
     sometimes. He has made one payment on the principal, from a sale
     of hogs. Almost the only poor people who have kept up to their
     agreement have been some near ——, since the cotton factory was
     started there. It is wonderful what a difference that has made,
     though it’s but a picayune affair. People who have no negroes in
     this country generally raise corn enough to bread them through
     the year, and have hogs enough ranging in the swamps to supply
     them with bacon. They do not often buy anything except coffee and
     molasses and tobacco. They are not generally drunkards, but the
     men will spend all the money they may have and get gloriously
     drunk once or twice a year, at elections or at court time, when
     they go to the county town. I think that two bales of cotton a
     year is as much as is generally made by people who do not own
     negroes. They are doing well if they net over fifty dollars a year
     from their labour, besides supplying themselves with corn. A real
     smart man, who tends his crop well, and who knows how it ought to
     be managed, can make five bales, almost always. Five bales are
     worth two hundred and fifty dollars, but it’s very rare that a
     white man makes that. They have not got the right kind of tools,
     and they don’t know how. Their crops are never half tended. If
     folks generally tended their crops as some do, there would be more
     than twice as much cotton raised as there is.”

With regard to the enlargement of estates by successful planters,
having stated what were my impressions, the same gentleman replied
that I was entirely right, and gave an instance, as follows, from his
personal knowledge:—

     “J. B. moved into —— county within my recollection. He has bought
     out, one after another, and mainly since 1850, more than twenty
     small landowners, some of them small slaveholders, and they have
     moved away from the vicinity. I do not know how many negroes he
     has now, but several hundred, certainly. His surplus must have
     averaged twenty thousand dollars a year for several years, and,
     as far as I know, the whole is expended in purchasing negroes or
     land. He spends no money for anything else in the county, I am
     sure. It is a common thing to hear a man say, ‘J. B. has bought up
     next to me, and I shall have to quit soon.’ He never gets the land
     alongside of a man that within two years he does not buy him out.
     In the last ten years I know of but one exception, and that is a
     man who has shot two of B.’s niggers who were stealing his corn.
     This man swears he won’t sell at any price, and that he will shoot
     any of J. B.’s niggers whom he catches coming on his place. B.’s
     niggers are afraid of him, and let him alone. J. B. will pay more
     for land than its worth to anybody else, and his negroes are such
     thieves that nobody can live in comfort on any place adjoining one
     of his. There are two other men in the county who are constantly
     buying up the land around there. The white population of the
     county is diminishing, and the trade of the place [the county
     town] is not so good as it was ten years ago.”

The following is an extract from a letter written by a worthy farmer of
Illinois, whose name and address is in my possession, and who is deemed
by those who have known him for many years a sound trustworthy man:—

     “What might be made of this country if the people were free, and
     the labourer everywhere owned the land, one may speculate upon;
     and when he sees the homes of Yankees who go thither often with
     small means, and make old worn-out places blossom and bloom, he
     begins to suspect that there is something in men as well as in
     climate.

     “I now come to speak of the wealth of the people of the
     South-western Slave States, and, for fear I may be thought to
     exaggerate, I here say I will not tell the whole truth. I’ll keep
     some back for another time. Now, men who go through on boats and
     cars, and stop in cities and large hotels, know nothing to what
     I do—I who have gone among the people of every class, I who have
     stayed with them hundreds of nights, Sundays and all, and gone
     to meetings and frolics, and travelled hours in the woods, where
     sometimes there was a road, and sometimes not, trying to find a
     place to stay over night—and, having visited more than a thousand
     plantations, and slept and eat in I know not how many hovels, and
     talked with them all, and, if I choose, can talk precisely as they
     do, and they wouldn’t suspect I was born up North—I say, I think I
     ought to know something about them.

     “The impression which one gets on going South is the general
     dilapidation or carelessness which appears, even upon some of the
     best plantations. The nice white houses so common at the North,
     even in the remotest agricultural districts, with green blinds,
     with clean door-yards, and well kept shrubbery, snug barns, green
     meadows, and corner school-houses, are nowhere seen. The furniture
     of the houses is of the commonest description; and to make short
     work with it, I estimate that there are not decent chairs enough
     in the whole South to give half a set to each family. For there
     are to-day, and there have been for every day for more than ten
     years past, more than 30,000 people in Tennessee alone, who have
     not a foot of land or a bit of work to do. I am speaking of
     whites, and not of negroes at all. A bushel of corn-meal, a side
     of bacon, and a little coffee, will be all that a family of this
     class can ever expect to get beforehand, and it is often they
     get neither coffee nor bacon. If they have a cow, and she ‘comes
     up,’ they may have milk, but as for butter, some have heard of
     it, some have seen it, few have eaten it. And the fact is, many,
     yes, many who own from two to five slaves, are little better off.
     I stayed with a man who had fifteen slaves and 400 acres of land,
     where he had lived forty years, and his house was not worth fifty
     cents; what my fare was you may guess. I have seen hundreds of
     families living in log cabins, ten or twelve feet square, where
     the children run around as naked as ever they were born, and a
     bedstead or chair was not in the house, and never will be. I have
     seen the children eat wheat and grass, growing in the field. I
     have seen them eat dirt. I saw children here on my own place,
     in Southern Illinois, last year, eat dirt, they were so hungry.
     Southern Illinois has been a city of refuge for the poor people
     of the Slave States. Folks thought Humboldt told a big story when
     he gave an account of the clay-eating Indians of South America.
     Of course where poverty is so general, and where the slaves are
     few, the slaves cannot fare much worse than their masters. It is
     generally said by the people of the Slave States that they prefer
     corn bread, but, place the two kinds before them, and you will
     see which they like best. No class of people like corn bread, and
     no people, as a general thing, are worth much who can get nothing
     else.

     “For the most part, the people of these regions manufacture all
     their every-day clothing, and their garments look as though they
     were made for no other purpose than to keep them warm and to cover
     their nakedness; beauty of colouring and propriety in fitting
     are little regarded. Every man who is not rich is a shoemaker.
     Blacksmith-shops are innumerable, and yet I have sent a boy over
     eighty miles from shop to shop, and then did not get a horse shod.
     Men call themselves gunsmiths, but they only stock guns. There
     are carpenters, and cabinet-makers, and chair-makers, and all
     this working badly with poor tools. The sum is, there is no real
     discipline of mind among them, no real ingenuity, no education,
     no comfortable houses, no good victuals, nor do they know how to
     cook; and when I go among them, what troubles me most is, they
     have _no grass, no clover, no hay_.

     “And yet, as fine and well-disposed men, and as anxious to
     improve, are to be found in the South-western States as are to be
     found anywhere. They are as honest as men ever are, and they will
     treat a stranger the best they know how. The trouble is, the large
     slaveholders have got all the good land. There can be no schools,
     and if the son of a poor man rises above his condition there is
     no earthly chance for him. He can only hope to be a slave-driver,
     for an office is not his, or he must leave and go to a Free State.
     _Were there no Free States, the white people of the South would
     to-day be slaves._”

I will here call upon just one more witness, whose evidence I cite at
this point, not merely because, in very few words, having reference to
the very heart of the planter’s prosperity, it practically endorses all
I have said, but for another reason which will presently appear.

First as to the non-slaveholders:—

     “I am not aware that the relative number of these two classes has
     ever been ascertained in any of the States, but I am satisfied
     that the non-slaveholders far outnumber the slaveholders, perhaps
     by three to one.[63] In the more southern portion of this region
     [‘the South-west,’ of which Mississippi is the centre], the
     non-slaveholders possess generally but very small means, and the
     land which they possess is almost universally poor, and so sterile
     that a scanty subsistence is all that can be derived from its
     cultivation, and the more fertile soil, being in the hands of the
     slaveholders, must ever remain out of the power of those who have
     none. * * * And I lament to say that I have observed of late years
     that an evident deterioration is taking place in this part of the
     population, the younger portion of it being less educated, less
     industrious, and. in every point of view, less respectable than
     their ancestors.”—J. O. B. DE BOW, _Resources of the South and
     West_, vol. ii. p. 106.

Again as to the cotton-planters and slaveholders:—

     “If one unacquainted with the condition of the South-west were
     told that the cotton-growing district alone had sold the crop for
     fifty million dollars for the last twenty years he would naturally
     conclude that this must be the richest community in the world.
     * * * But what would be his surprise when told that so far from
     living in palaces, many of these planters dwell in habitations
     of the most primitive construction, and these so inartificially
     built as to be incapable of defending the inmates from the winds
     and rains of heaven. That instead of any artistical improvement,
     this rude dwelling was surrounded by cotton fields, or probably by
     fields exhausted, washed into gullies, and abandoned; that instead
     of canals, the navigable streams remain unimproved, to the great
     detriment of transportation; that the common roads of the country
     were scarcely passable; that the edifices erected for the purposes
     of learning and religion were frequently built of logs and covered
     [roofed] with boards.”—J. O. B. DE BOW, _Resources of the South_,
     vol. ii. p. 113.

Do a majority of Northern working men dwell in habitations having
no more elements of comfort, even taking difference of climate into
consideration, than Mr. De Bow ascribes to the residences of the
slaves’ owners? No Northern man can for a moment hold such an opinion.
What, then, becomes of the theory by which the planters justify slavery
to themselves and recommend it to us? If the ennobling luxuries
which the institution of slavery secures to the “superior class,”
and by which it is supposed to be “qualified for the higher duties
of citizenship,” are, at the most, sugar, instead of molasses, in
its coffee; butter, with its pone; cabbage, with its bacon, and two
sheets to its bed—and the traveller who goes where I travelled, month
after month, with the same experience, cannot help learning to regard
these as luxuries indeed,—if “freedom from sordid and petty cares,”
and “leisure for intellectual pursuits,” means a condition approaching
in comfort that of the keeper of a lightship on an outer bar, what
is the exact value of such words as “hospitality,” “generosity,” and
“gallantry?” What is to be understood from phrases in such common use
as “high toned,” “well bred,” “generous,” “hospitable,” and soon, when
used in argument to prove the beneficence of slavery and to advocate
its extension?

_From De Bow’s Review._

     “Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted, after signalizing himself by two very
     wordy volumes, abounding in bitterness and prejudice of every
     sort, and misrepresentations upon the ‘Seaboard Slave States,’
     finding how profitable such literature is in a pecuniary point of
     view, and what a run is being made upon it thoughout the entire
     limits of abolitiondom, vouchsafes us now another volume, entitled
     a ‘Journey through Texas, or a Saddle-trip on the South-western
     Frontier.’ Here, again, the opportunity is too tempting to be
     resisted to revile and abuse the men and the society whose open
     hospitality he undoubtedly enjoyed, and whom we have no doubt,
     like every other of his tribe travelling at the South, he found it
     convenient at the time to flatter and approve. We have now grown
     accustomed to this, and it is not at all surprising that here and
     there it is producing its effect in some violent exhibition of
     feeling like that displayed by our worthy old friend Dr. Brewer,
     of Montgomery county, Maryland, who persistently refuses, on all
     occasions, to allow a Yankee even to cross his fields, or like
     that of John Randolph, who said in the House, ‘Mr. Speaker, I
     would not allow one of my servants to buy as much as a toot-horn
     from one of these people.’ * * *

     “Somewhat further on, the parties rest for the night. ‘For
     this the charge was $1.25 each person, including breakfast
     and horse-feed.’ At the end of every page or two our tourist
     repeats these growlings over the enormous exactions. It is the
     refrain from one cover of the book to the other. What a series
     of martyrdoms. Could such a journey by any possibility be made
     ‘to pay?’ Perhaps, friend traveller, you have heard of the lavish
     hospitality of the South, and imagined that people there moved out
     upon the high road for the sole purpose of sharing the society
     which gentlemen, like yourself, could furnish, believing every
     arrival to be an act of special providence! When you offered to
     pay the woman on Red River, and ‘feared she was offended by your
     offering her money for her hospitality,’ you paid the highest
     compliment to the South; for heaven knows you would have had no
     such apprehension on the banks of the Connecticut.”

I cannot but be gratified that so much importance should have been
attached to my earlier volumes as to induce the Superintendent of the
Census to devote to their consideration a leading article in the first
economico-political review of the country; and I can feel nothing but
regret that he should be obliged to attribute to an unworthy motive
even those of my labours the result of which he does me the honour
to designate as valuable and trustworthy. I have often had occasion
to refer to Mr. De Bow, and, I believe, have always done so in a
manner consistent with the respect which I feel for the class of men
among whom he has had the honourable ambition to rank himself. That
a man, while occupying a position which properly belongs to the most
able and just-minded statistician in the country, should think it
proper to write under his own name in the manner of which the above
extracts are a sample, about a work which assumes to relate calmly
and methodically, the result of a personal study of the condition
of the people of a certain State, is a note-worthy circumstance in
illustration of the present political history of our country. I cite
them now, however, chiefly to show what need there is for a discussion
upon which I propose to enter, myself, little further than is necessary
to enable me to clearly set forth certain facts in their more important
significance, the right of publishing which can hardly be denied me, in
view of the insinuations made by Mr. De Bow, who in this follows what
has got to be a general custom of Southern reviewers and journalists
towards travellers with whose expressed judgments upon any matter
observed within the slave States they differ. There are numerous homes
in the South the memory of which I cherish tenderly. There are numbers
of men in the South for whom I have a warm admiration, to whom I feel
grateful, whose respect I wish not to lose. There are others for whom
I have a quite different feeling. Of a single individual of neither
class have I spoken in these two volumes, I believe, by his true name,
or in such a manner that he could be recognized, or his home pointed
out by any one who had not been previously familiar with it and with
him, being, as a rule, careful to so far differ from the actual order
of the events of my journey in narrating them, that facts of private
life could not be readily localized. From this rule I do not intend now
to depart further than is necessary to exhibit the whole truth of the
facts to which I have referred, but since the charge of ingratitude
and indelicacy is publicly made against me, as it has frequently been
of late against better men on similar grounds, I propose to examine
those grounds in the light of certain actual experiences of myself and
others, and let it be judged whether there must always exist a peculiar
moral obligation upon travellers to be mealy-mouthed as to the habits
of the people of the South, either on account of hospitality or in
reciprocation of the delicate reserve which, from the tenor of Mr. De
Bow’s remarks, it might be supposed was habitually exercised in the
South with regard to the habits of their own people. These experiences
shall be both special and general. What immediately follows is of the
former class, but, in the end, it will be found to have a general
significance.

On a hot morning in July a Northern traveller left the town of
Lynchburg, the chief market-town of Virginia tobacco, and rode
eastwardly towards Farmville. Suddenly taken severely ill, and no house
being in sight, he turned from the road into the shade of the wood,
dismounted, reclined against a sturdy trunk, took an anodyne, which he
fortunately had with him, and at length found relief in sleep. Late in
the day he awoke, somewhat recovered, but with a sharp headache and
much debilitated. He managed, however, to mount, and rode slowly on to
find a shelter for the night. In half an hour the welcome sight of an
old plantation mansion greeted his eyes. There was a large court, with
shade trees and shrubbery between the road and the house, and in the
corner of this court, facing the road, a small warehouse or barn, in
and around which were a number of negroes moving casks of tobacco. A
white man, evidently their owner, was superintending their labour, and
to him the traveller applied for lodging for the night.

“We don’t take in strangers.”

The traveller informed the planter of his illness and inability to ride
further.

“You’ll have to try to ride as far as the next house, sir; we don’t
take in travellers here,” was the reply.

“Really I don’t feel able. I should not like to put you to
inconvenience, sir, but I am weak and faint. My horse, too, has eaten
nothing since early in the morning.”

“Sorry for you, but we have no accommodation for travellers here,” was
the only reply, and the planter stepped to the other side of a tobacco
cask.

The traveller rode on. About half an hour afterwards he came in sight
of another house. It was at a distance from the road, and to reach it
he was obliged to let down and put up again three different sets of
fence-bars. The owner was not at home, and his wife said that they
were not accustomed to take in strangers. “It was not far to the next
house,” she added, as the traveller hesitated.

He reached, at length, the next house, which proved to be the residence
of another large tobacco planter, who sat smoking in its verandah, as
the traveller rode near and made his petition.

“We don’t take in travellers,” was again his answer.

The sick man stated his special claims to kindness, and the planter
good-naturedly inquired the particulars, asked how far he had ridden,
where he got his horse and his dog, whither he was bound, and so
on (did not ask where he was born or what were his politics). The
traveller again stated that he was ill, unable to ride further, and
begged permission to remain for the night under the planter’s roof,
and again the planter carelessly replied that they didn’t take in
travellers; anon, asked how crops were looking further west, and talked
of guano, the war news, and the prospect for peaches. It became dusk
while the traveller lingered, and the negroes came in with their hoes
over their shoulders from the fields across the road, but the planter
continued chatting and smoking, not even offering the traveller a
cigar, till at length the latter said, “If you really cannot keep me
to-night, I must go on, sir; I cannot keep my horse much longer, I
fear.”

“It is not far to the next house.”

“But I have already called at three houses to-night, sir.”

“Well, you see, since the railroad was done, people here don’t reckon
to take in travellers as they once did. So few come along they don’t
find their account in being ready for them.”

The traveller asked for a drink of water, which a negro brought in
a calabash, bade good night to the planter, and rode on through the
woods. Night presently set in; the road crossed a swamp and was
difficult to follow, and for more than an hour he rode on—seeing no
house—without stopping. Then crossing water, he deliberated whether
he should not bivouac for the night where he was. He had with him a
few biscuits and some dried figs. He had not eaten hitherto, hoping
constantly to come to a habitation where it might happen he could get
a cup of tea, of which he felt more particularly in need. He stopped,
took some nourishment, the first he had tasted in fifteen hours, and
taking also a little brandy, gained strength and courage to continue
his journey. A bright light soon cheered him, and after a time he made
his way to a large white house, in the rear of which was an old negro
woman stirring the contents of a caldron which stood over the fire, by
which he had been guided. The old woman had the appearance of a house
servant, and he requested her to ask her master if he would favour him
with lodging for the night.

“Her master did not take in travellers,” she said, “besides, he was
gone to bed;” and she stirred on, hardly looking at the traveller till
he put his hand in his pocket, and, holding forth silver, said—

“Now, aunty, mind what I tell you. Do you go in to your master, and
say to him, ‘There is a gentleman outside who says he is sick, and
that his horse is tired and has had nothing to eat to-day; that he is
a stranger and has been benighted, don’t know the roads, is not well
enough to ride further, and wants to know if you won’t be so kind as to
let him stay here to-night.’”

“Yes, massa, I’ll tell him; ’twon’t do no good, though, and he’ll be
almighty cross.”

She went in, returned after a few minutes, seized her paddle, and began
stirring before she uttered the words—

“Says yer ken go on to de store, he reckon.”

It was after ten o’clock when the traveller reached the next house. It
stood close upon the road, and the voice of a woman answered a knock
upon the door, and, in reply to the demand, said it was not far to the
store, and she reckoned they accommodated travellers there.

Finally, at the store, the traveller succeeded in getting admittance,
was comfortably lodged and well entertained by an amiable family.
Their kindness was of such a character that he felt, in the position
of an invited guest, unable to demand and unwilling to suggest any
unvolunteered service. There was no indication that the house was an
inn, yet the traveller’s experience left him little room to hesitate to
offer money, nor was there the slightest hesitation on the part of the
storekeeper in naming the amount due for the entertainment he had, or
in taking it.

If the reader will accept the traveller’s judgment of himself, he
will assume that there was nothing in his countenance, his dress, his
language, or his bearing, by which he could readily be distinguished
from a gentleman of Southern birth and education, and that he was not
imagined to be anything else, certainly not on his first inquiry, at
any one of the plantations where he was thus refused shelter.

So far as this inhospitality (for this is, I think, what even the
Southern reader will be inclined to call it) needed explanation, it
was supposed to be sufficiently given in the fact that the region had,
by the recent construction of a railroad through it, approximated the
condition of a well-settled and organized community, in which the
movements of travellers are so systematized, that the business of
providing for their wants, as a matter of pecuniary profit, can no
longer be made a mere supplement of another business, but becomes a
distinct occupation.

This, then, but a small part of the whole land being thus affected by
railroads, was an exception in the South. True; but what is the rule to
which this is the exception?

Mr. De Bow says, that the traveller would have had no apprehension that
the offer of money for chance entertainment for the night furnished
him at a house on the banks of the Connecticut, would give offence;
yet in the Connecticut valley, among people having no servants, and
not a tithe of the nominal wealth of the Red River planter, or of one
of these Virginia planters, such has been a frequent experience of the
same traveller. Nor has he ever, when calling benighted at a house,
anywhere in the State of Connecticut, far from a public-house, escaped
being invited with cordial frankness to enjoy such accommodation as
it afforded; and this, he is fully convinced, without any thought in
the majority of cases of pecuniary remuneration. In several instances
a remuneration in money has been refused in a manner which conveyed a
reproof of the offer of it as indelicate; and it thus happens that it
was a common experience of that, of the possibility of which Mr. De Bow
is unable to conceive, that led in no small degree to the hesitation
upon which this very comment was made.

This simple faith in the meanness of the people of the North, and
especially of New England, is no eccentricity of Mr. De Bow’s. It is in
accordance with the general tone of literature and of conversation at
the South, that penuriousness, disingenuousness, knavish cunning, cant,
cowardice, and hypocrisy are assumed to be the prevailing traits by
which they are distinguished from the people of the South—not the poor
people of New England from the planters of the South, but the people
generally from the people generally. Not the tone of the political
literature and of the lower class of the South, but of its wealthy
class, very generally, really of its “better class.” Mr. De Bow is
himself the associate of gentlemen as well informed and as free from
narrow prejudices as any at the South. No New England man, who has
travelled at the South, would be surprised, indeed, if, at a table at
which he were a guest, such an assumption as that of Mr. De Bow should
be apparent in all the conversation, and that the gist of it should be
supposed to be so well understood and generally conceded, that he could
not be annoyed thereat.

I need hardly say that this reference to Mr. De Bow is continued, not
for the purpose of vindicating the North any more than myself from a
mistaken criticism. I wish only to demonstrate how necessary it must
soon be to find other means for saving the Union than these commonplace
flatteries of Southern conceit and apologies for Southern folly, to
which we have not only become so accustomed ourselves, as to hardly
believe our eyes when we are obliged to meet the facts (as was my own
case), but by which we have so successfully imposed upon our friends,
that a man like Mr. De Bow actually supposes that the common planters
of the teeming and sunny South, are, as a rule, a more open-handed,
liberal, and hospitable class than the hard-working farmers of the
bleak and sterile hills of New England; so much so, that he feels
warranted not merely in stating facts within his personal knowledge,
illustrating the character of the latter and arguing the causes, but in
incidentally referring to their penuriousness as a matter of proverbial
contempt. Against this mistake, which, I doubt not, is accomplishing
constant mischief to our nation, I merely oppose the facts of actual
experience. I wish to do so with true respect for the good sense of the
South.

  *       *       *       *       *

Presenting myself, and known only in the character of a chance
traveller, most likely to be in search of health, entertainment, and
information; usually taken for and treated as a Southerner, until I
stated that I was not one, I journeyed nearly six months at one time
(my second journey) through the South. During all this journey, I came
not oftener than once a week, on an average, to public-houses, and was
thus generally forced to seek lodging and sustenance at private houses.
Often it was refused me; not unfrequently rudely refused. But once did
I meet with what Northern readers could suppose Mr. De Bow to mean by
the term (used in the same article), “free road-side hospitality.”
Not once with the slightest appearance of what Noah Webster defines
hospitality—the “practice of receiving or entertaining strangers
without reward.”

Only twice, in a journey of four thousand miles, made independently of
public conveyances, did I receive a night’s lodging or a repast from a
native Southerner, without having the exact price in money which I was
expected to pay for it stated to me by those at whose hands I received
it.

  *       *       *       *       *

If what I have just narrated had been reported to me before I
travelled in the manner I did in my second journey at the South, I
should have had serious doubts of either the honesty or the sanity
of the reporter. I know, therefore, to what I subject myself in now
giving my own name to it. I could not but hesitate to do this, as
one would be cautious in acknowledging that he believed himself to
have seen the sea-serpent, or had discovered a new motive power. By
drawing out the confidence of other travellers, who had chanced to
move through the South in a manner at all similar, however, I have
had the satisfaction of finding that I am not altogether solitary in
my experience. Even this day I met one fresh from the South-west, to
whom, after due approach, I gave the article which is the text of these
observations, asking to be told how he had found it in New England and
in Mississippi. He replied.

     “During four winters, I have travelled for a business purpose
     two months each winter in Mississippi. I have generally spent
     the night at houses with whose inmates I had some previous
     acquaintance. Where I had business transactions, especially
     where debts were due to me, which could not be paid, I sometimes
     neglected to offer payment for my night’s lodging, but in no
     other case, and never in a single instance, so far as I can
     now recollect, where I had offered payment, has there been any
     hesitation in taking it. A planter might refrain from asking
     payment of a traveller, but it is universally expected. In New
     England, as far as my limited experience goes, it is not so.
     I have known New England farmers’ wives take a small gratuity
     after lodging travellers, but always with apparent hesitation. I
     have known New England farmers refuse to do so. I have had some
     experience in Iowa; money is there usually (not always) taken for
     lodging travellers. The principal difference between the custom at
     private houses there and in Alabama and Mississippi being, that
     in Iowa the farmer seems to carefully reckon the exact value of
     the produce you have consumed, and to charge for it at what has
     often seemed to me an absurdly low rate; while in Mississippi,
     I have usually paid from four to six times as much as in Iowa,
     for similar accommodations. I consider the usual charges of
     planters to travellers extortionate, and the custom the reverse of
     hospitable. I knew of a Kentucky gentleman travelling from Eutaw
     to Greensboro’ [twenty miles] in his own conveyance. He was taken
     sick at the crossing of the Warrior River. It was nine o’clock
     at night. He averred to me that he called at every plantation on
     the road, and stated that he was a Kentuckian, and sick, but was
     refused lodging at each of them.”

This the richest county of Alabama, and the road is lined with valuable
plantations!

The following is an extract from a letter dated Columbus, Mississippi,
November 24, 1856, published in the London _Daily News_. It is written
by an Englishman travelling for commercial purposes, and tells what he
has learned by experience of the custom of the country:

     “It is customary in travelling through this country, where towns
     are few and taverns scarce and vile, to stop at the planters’
     houses along the road, and pay for your bed and board in the
     morning just as if you had stayed at an inn. The custom is rather
     repugnant to our Old World notions of hospitality, but it appears
     to me an excellent one for both the host and his guest. The one
     feels less bored by demands upon his kindness, as soon as it
     ceases to be merely a kindness to comply with them, and the other
     has no fear about intruding or being troublesome when he knows he
     will have to pay for his entertainment. It is rarely, however,
     that the _entrée_ can be obtained into the houses of wealthy
     planters in this way. They will not be bothered by your visits,
     and, if you apply to them, have no hesitation in politely passing
     you on to such of their neighbours as have less money or more
     generosity.”

The same writer afterwards relates the following experience:—

     “About nineteen miles from Canton, I sought lodging at nightfall
     at a snug house on the roadside, inhabited by an old gentleman
     and his two daughters, who possessed no slaves and grew no
     cotton, and whose two sons had been killed in the Mexican war,
     and who, with the loudest professions of hospitality, cautiously
     refrained from giving himself any personal trouble in support of
     them. He informed me that there was corn in the husk in an almost
     inaccessible loft, there was fodder in an un-get-at-able sort of a
     cage in the yard, water in a certain pond about half a mile off,
     and a currycomb in a certain hole in the wall. Having furnished me
     with this intelligence, he left me to draw my own conclusions as
     to what my conduct ought to be under the circumstances.”

A naturalist, the author of a well-known standard work, who has made
several tours of observation in the Slave States, lately confided to
me that he believed that the popular report of Southern hospitality
must be a popular romance, for never, during all his travels in the
South, had he chanced to be entertained for a single night, except
by gentlemen to whom he was formally presented by letter, or who had
previously been under obligations to him, without paying for it in
money, and to an amount quite equal to the value received. By the
wealthier, a night’s entertainment had been frequently refused him,
under circumstances which, as must have been evident to them, rendered
his further progress seriously inconvenient. Once, while in company
with a foreign naturalist—a titled man—he had been dining at the inn
of a small county-town, when a certain locally distinguished judge had
seen fit to be eloquent at the dinner-table upon the advantages of
slavery in maintaining a class of “high-toned gentlemen,” referring
especially to the proverbial hospitality of Southern plantations,
which he described as quite a bewilderment to strangers, and nothing
like which was to be found in any country unblessed with slavery,
or institutions equivalent to it. It so happened that the following
night the travellers, on approaching a plantation mansion in quest of
lodging, were surprised to find that they had fallen upon the residence
of this same judge, who recognized them, and welcomed them and bade
them be at home. Embarrassed by a recollection of his discourse of
hospitality, it was with some difficulty that one of them, when they
were taking leave next morning, brought himself to inquire what he
might pay for the entertainment they had received. He was at once
relieved by the judge’s prompt response, “Dollar and a quarter apiece,
I reckon.”

It is very true that the general custom of the South which leads a
traveller to ask for a lodging at any private house he may chance to
reach near nightfall, and to receive a favourable answer not merely
as a favour but as a matter of business, is a convenient one, is
one indeed almost necessary in a country so destitute of villages,
and where, off certain thoroughfares of our merchants, there are so
few travellers. It is a perfectly respectable and entirely sensible
custom, but it is not, as is commonly represented to be, a custom
of hospitality, and it is not at all calculated to induce customs
of hospitality with the mass of citizens. It is calculated to make
inhospitality of habit and inhospitality of character the general
rule; hospitality of habit and of character the exception. Yet the
common misapplication of the word to this custom is, so far as I
can ascertain, the only foundation of the arrogant assumption of
superiority of character in this respect of the Southerners over
ourselves—the only ground of the claim that slavery breeds a race of
more generous and hospitable citizens than freedom.

  *       *       *       *       *

The difficulty of giving anything like an intelligent and exact
estimate of the breeding of any people or of any class of people is
almost insurmountable, owing to the vagueness of the terms which must
be used, or rather to the quite different ideas which different readers
will attach to these terms. The very word which I have employed to
designate my present subject has itself such a varied signification
that it needs to be defined at the outset. I mean to employ it in
that sense wherein, according to Webster, it covers the ground of
“nurture, instruction, and the formation of manners.” It is something
more than “manners and customs,” then, and includes, or may include,
qualities which, if not congenital, are equally an essential part of
character with those qualities which are literally in-bred of a man.
Such qualities are mainly the result of a class of circumstances, of
the influence of which upon his character and manners a man, or a child
growing to a man, is usually unconscious, and of which he cannot be
independent if he would.

The general difficulty is increased in dealing with the people of
the Slave States, because among themselves all terms defining social
rank and social characteristics are applied in a manner which can
be understood only after considerable experience; and also because
the general terms of classification, always incomplete in their
significance, fail entirely with a large class of Southerners, whose
manners have some characteristics which would elsewhere be thought
“high bred,” if they had not other which are elsewhere universally
esteemed low and ruffianly.

There are undoubted advantages resulting from the effects of slavery
upon the manners of some persons. Somewhat similar advantages I have
thought that I perceived to have resulted in the Free States, where
a family has been educated under favourable influences in a frontier
community. There is boldness, directness, largeness, confidence,
with the effect of the habitual sense of superiority to most of the
community; not superiority of wealth, and power from wealth merely,
but of a mind well stocked and refined by such advantages of education
as only very unusual wealth, or very unusual individual energy,
rightly directed, can procure in a scattered and frontier community.
When to this is added the effect of visits to the cultivated society
of denser communities; when refined and polished manners are grafted
on a natural, easy abandon; when there is high culture without
effeminacy either of body or mind, as not unfrequently happens, we
find a peculiarly respectable and agreeable sort of men and women.
They are the result of frontier training under the most favourable
circumstances. In the class furthest removed from this on the
frontier—people who have grown up without civilized social restraints
or encouragements and always under what in a well-conditioned community
would be esteemed great privations—happens, on the other hand, the most
disagreeable specimen of mankind that the world breeds; men of a sort
almost peculiar to America and Australia; border ruffians, of whom the
“rowdies” of our eastern towns are tame reflections. Cooper has well
described the first class in many instances. I know of no picture of
the latter which represents them as detestable as I have found them.

The whole South is maintained in a frontier condition by the system
which is apologized for on the ground that it favours good breeding.
This system, at the same time, tends to concentrate wealth in a
few hands. If there is wisdom and great care in the education of a
family thus favoured, the result which we see at the North, under the
circumstances I have described, is frequently reproduced. There are
many more such fruits of frontier life at the South than the North,
because there is more frontier life. There is also vastly more of the
other sort, and there is everything between, which degrees of wealth
and degrees of good fortune in education would be expected to occasion.
The bad breed of the frontier, at the South, however, is probably far
worse than that of the North, because the frontier condition of the
South is everywhere permanent. The child born to-day on the Northern
frontier, in most cases, before it is ten years old, will be living
in a well organized and tolerably well provided community; schools,
churches, libraries, lecture and concert halls, daily mails and
printing presses, shops and machines in variety, having arrived within
at least a day’s journey of it; being always within an influencing
distance of it. There are improvements, and communities loosely and
gradually cohering in various parts of the South, but so slowly, so
feebly, so irregularly, that men’s minds and habits are knit firm quite
independently of this class of social influences.

There is one other characteristic of the Southerner, which is far
more decided than the difference of climate merely would warrant, and
which is to be attributed not only to the absence of the ordinary
restraints and means of discipline of more compact communities in his
education, but unquestionably also to the readiness and safety with
which, by reason of slavery, certain passions and impulses may be
indulged. Every white Southerner is a person of importance; must be
treated with deference. Every wish of the Southerner is imperative;
every belief undoubted; every hate, vengeful; every love, fiery. Hence,
for instance, the scandalous fiend-like street fights of the South.
If a young man feels offended with another, he does not incline to a
ring and a fair stand-up set-to, like a young Englishman; he will not
attempt to overcome his opponent by logic; he will not be content to
vituperate, or to cast ridicule upon him; he is impelled straightway
to strike him down with the readiest deadly weapon at hand, with as
little ceremony and pretence of fair combat as the loose organization
of the people against violence will allow. He seems crazy for blood.
Intensity of personal pride—pride in anything a man has, or which
connects itself with him, is more commonly evident. Hence, intense
local pride and prejudice; hence intense partisanship; hence rashness
and over-confidence; hence visionary ambition; hence assurance in
debate; hence assurance in society. As self-appreciation is equally
with deference a part of what we call good breeding, and as the
expression of deference is much more easily reduced to a matter of
manners and forms, in the commonplace intercourse of society, than
self-appreciation, this characteristic quality of the Southerner needs
to be borne in mind in considering the port and manners he commonly
has, and judging from them of the effects of slavery.

It must be also considered that the ordinary occupations and
amusements of people of moderate wealth at the North are seldom
resorted to at the South, that public entertainments of any kind, for
instance, are impracticable to a sparse population; consequently that
where men of wealth are socially disposed, all intercourse with others
is highly valued, prepared for, and made the most of. Hence, with
these, the act of social intercourse is more highly esteemed, and is
much more frequently carried to a nice perfection of manner than it
usually is with men otherwise of corresponding education, and habits at
the North.

In a Northern community a man who is not greatly occupied with private
business is sure to become interested in social enterprises and to
undertake duties in them which will demand a great deal of time and
strength. School, road, cemetery, asylum, and church corporations;
bridge, ferry, and water companies; literary, scientific, art,
mechanical, agricultural and benevolent societies; all these things
are managed chiefly by the unpaid services of gentlemen during hours
which they can spare from their private interests. In the successful
operations of such enterprises they find much of the satisfaction of
their life. So, too, our young men, who are not obliged to devote
their thoughts chiefly to business success, are members and managers
of reading rooms, public libraries, gymnasiums, game clubs, boat
clubs, ball clubs, and all sorts of clubs, Bible classes, debating
societies, military companies; they are planting road-side trees,
or damming streams for skating ponds, or rigging diving-boards,
or getting up firework displays, or private theatricals; they are
always doing something, not conversing for the entertainment of the
moment. Planters, the details of whose business fall into the hands
of overseers, and young men of fortune, at the South, have, when at
home on the plantation, none of these occupations. Their talents all
turn into two channels, politics and sociality; the very paucity of
society making it the more esteemed and the more carefully used.
Social intercourse at the North is a relaxation from the ordinary
bent of men’s talents; at the South, it is that to which mainly their
talents are bent. Hence, with men who are otherwise on a par, in
respect of natural advantages and education, the Southerner will have
a higher standard of manners than the Northerner, because, with him,
social intercourse is the grand resource to which all other possible
occupations of his mind become subordinate. The Northerner, being
troubled by no monotony, unquestionably too much neglects at present
this, the highest and final art of every type of civilization. In
making this comparison, however, it must not be forgotten that it is
made between men who are supposed to be equal in all respects, except
in the possession of this advantage, and who are equally at leisure
from any necessary habitual occupation for a livelihood.

Having conceded to the South certain elements of advantage in this
respect, for a single class, it still remains to inquire where is the
greatest weight of advantage for this class, and for all classes of
our citizens. In attempting to make such a general comparison, I shall
begin at the bottom of the social ladder, and return to the class who
can in a great degree choose how they will be occupied.

In the North at the Revolution we scarcely had a distinct class
corresponding to the lowest white class of Virginia, as described
by Jefferson, our labourers being less ignorant and coarse in their
habits, and associating much more familiarly with their betters. We
have now a class more nearly corresponding to it furnished by the
European peasant immigration. It is, however, a transient class,
somewhat seldom including two generations, and, on an average, I trust,
not one. It is therefore practically not an additional class, but,
overlooking the aged and diseased, a supplement to our lowest normal
class. Out of twenty Irish emigrants, landing in New York, perfectly
destitute, of whose history I have been intimately cognizant, only
two, both of whom were over fifty years of age, have lived out five
years here without beginning to acquire wealth and becoming superior
in their ambition and habits to the lowest order, which I believe to
include a majority of the whites in the plantation districts of the
South.[64] Our lowest class, therefore, has a higher standard than
the lowest class of the Slave States. This, I understand, is made
very evident where the two come together at the West, as in southern
Illinois. The very poorest and lowest New England women who go there
are frequently offended by the inconsiderate rudeness and coarseness of
the women immigrating from the South, and shocked by their “shiftless,”
comfortless, vagrant habits, so much so that families have often
removed, after having been once established, to escape being bored and
annoyed by their Southern-born neighbours.

Referring to the lowest class, North and South, as the fourth, I class
as third, the lowest rank in society, North or South, in which regard
is had by its members to the quality of their associates from other
than moral motives, or the prejudices of locality, race, sectarianism,
and politics. In other words, that in which there is a distinct
social selectiveness and pride. I think that everywhere in the Free
States men of this class would almost universally feel their position
damaged—be a little ashamed—if obliged to confess that they did not
take a newspaper, or were unable to read it with a clear understanding
of the intelligence it was intended to communicate. Allusions to the
main facts of American history, to any clause of the Bible, to the
provisions of the Constitution, and the more important laws, State and
National, would be understood in most cases by those whom I refer to
as the third class in Northern society. In few families of this class
would you fail to find some volumes of the English poets, or some works
of great novelists or renowned travellers. Nothing like this would you
find, however, in a grade of society distinctly superior to the lowest
at the South.

The ratio of the number of the citizens who cannot read at all to the
whole, appears, by the census returns, to be only three times larger
at the South than at the North. I believe it to be much greater at the
South than these returns indicate.[65] The comparative education of the
third class “North” and of the third class “South,” however, cannot
be at all judged from these statistics, supposing them correct. Those
who can read and who do not read, or whose reading is confined within
extremely narrow limits, are a much larger number at the South than
at the North, owing to the much poorer supply of books and newspapers
which commerce can afford to put within the reach of the former. The
census returns two million newspapers, for instance, printed annually
in Virginia, one hundred and fifteen million in New York. There is
a post-office to every fourteen square miles in New York, one to
forty-seven square miles in Virginia; over five hundred publishers and
booksellers in New York, but forty in Virginia. Thirty thousand volumes
in public libraries in Virginia, eight hundred thousand in New York.
The area occupied by the population of Virginia being much the largest,
it may be inferred that with the disposition and the ability to read
anything in particular, the Virginian of the third class will have to
travel more than thirty times as far as the New Yorker to procure it.
The same proposition will hold good in regard to most other means of
cultivation, and the third class of the South generally has seemed
to me to be as much more narrow-minded, rude, coarse, “dangerous,”
and miserable, than the third class of the Free States, as the most
sanguine friend of popular education could anticipate from these facts.

The great difference in character between the third class of the South
and that of the North, as indicated by their respective manners,
is found in the much less curiosity and ready intelligent interest
in matters which have not an immediate personal bearing in that of
the South. Apathetic carelessness rather than simple indifference,
or reckless incivility as to your comfort, is what makes the low
Southerner a disagreeable companion. It is his impertinent shrewdness
which makes you wish to keep the Yankee at a distance. The first seems
without object, spiritless; the latter keen to better himself, if with
nothing else, with information which he can draw from you, and by
gaining your good opinion.

The next or second class would include, both North and South, those
with whose habits and character I am most familiar, and of whom I
can speak with the best right to confidence. It would include in New
England and New York the better educated farmers—these owning, I
should say, half the agricultural land—the permanently established
manufacturers and merchants of moderate capital; most of the
shopkeepers and the better-educated master mechanics and artisan
foremen; most of the preachers, physicians, and lawyers (some ranking
higher). It would correspond most nearly to what in England would
be called the lower-middle class, but any higher grade being very
ill-defined, existing distinctly but in few localities, and rarely
recognized as existing at all, it is in a great measure free from the
peculiar vulgarity of its English parallel.

The number of those at the South who correspond in education and
refinement of manners and habits to the average of this class of the
North, it will be evident, from a similar mode of reasoning to that
before employed, must be very much smaller relatively, either to the
territory or the whole white population of their respective regions.

In the comparison commonly made by Southern writers between the
condition of the people of a sparsely-settled country and another,
it is usually assumed that the advantages of the latter are confined
exclusively to towns, and to large and crowded towns. By contrasting
the evils which concentrate in such towns with the favourable
circumstances of localities where at least wood, water, and air are
abundant, and corn enough to support life can usually be got by any one
with a little occasional labour, an argument of some force to ignorant
people is easily presented. The advantages possessed by a people living
in moderately well-occupied rural districts, who are even more free
from the evils of great towns than their own people, are entirely
overlooked by most Southern writers. Such is the condition, however, of
more white people in the Free States than the whole white population
of the Slave States. A majority of our farmers’ daughters can walk
from their dwellings to schools of a quality such as at the South can
be maintained not twice in five hundred square miles. These schools
are practically a part of their homes. Probably, in more than half the
families of the South, the children of which are instructed to the
least degree which would be considered “respectable,” among this second
class of the North, private governesses are obliged to be employed,
or the children must be for many years at boarding-schools. We all
know that the young women who go to the South, to meet the demand thus
occasioned for home education, are not generally, though they may be in
cases, our own most esteemed and successful instructresses; and we also
know from their report that their skill and labour has necessarily to
be long chiefly employed in laying those simple foundation habits of
_instructability_, which our Northern children acquire imperceptibly
from association with those of the neighbourhood slightly in advance of
them. Churches and the various sub-organizations centreing in them, in
which class distinctions are much lost sight of, to the great advantage
of the manners of the lower classes, and little chance of injury to
the higher; libraries; literary societies; lecture arrangements;
dramatic and musical, art and scientific entertainments, and also
highly educated professional men, with whom, for various purposes, many
persons are brought often in contact, are correspondingly more frequent
at the North, correspondingly more accessible; in other words, the
advantages to be derived from them are cheaper, and so more influential
on the manners of the people at large.

The common opinion has been that the Southerners or planters of the
class now under consideration, are more social, more generous, more
heartily kind and genial than Northerners. According to my experience,
the reverse of all this is true, as a general rule. Families live so
isolatedly at the South, that any social contact, out of the family, is
of course much more eventful and stimulating than it is ordinarily at
the North, and this accounts for the common opinion. I could not but
think, however, that most persons at the South looked to the voluntary
good offices and conversation of others, both within and without their
families, for their enjoyment of the world, much less than most at the
North. It may be that when in towns they attach a greater value to, and
are more careful to make use of the opportunities for social gathering
afforded by towns, than are Northerners. In towns they attach more
consequence to forms, are more scrupulous in matters of etiquette, more
lavish in expenditure for dress, and for certain other things which are
the signs of luxury rather than luxury itself, such as plate and fancy
brands of wines. They make less show of fine art and less pretence of
artistic judgment; more of respect and regard for their associates, and
of indifference or superiority to all others.

As to manner or deportment simply, with the same impulse and intention,
that of the Southerner will habitually, under ordinary circumstances,
be best, more true, more composed, more dignified. I have said that
the second class at the North is without the pervading vulgarity of
the class to which it most nearly corresponds in England, the reason
being that those which constitute it seldom wish or attempt to appear
to belong to a superior class, not clearly recognizing a superior
class. Individuals, however, very generally have a strong desire to
be thought better informed, more ingenious, more witty, as well as
more successful in their enterprises than they are, and this stamps
them with a peculiar quality of manners vulgarly called “smartness,”
the absence of which makes Southern men and women generally much more
agreeable companions than Northerners of the same degree of education
and accomplishments in other respects. Not but that snobs abound; of
these it will be more convenient to speak under the next division,
however.

The traditional “old family,” stately but condescending, haughty
but jovial, keeping open house for all comers on the plantations of
Virginia or South Carolina, is not wholly a myth.

There really was something which, with some sort of propriety, could
be termed a gentry in Carolina and Virginia in their colony days; yet
of the names which are now thought to have belonged to it, as descended
of brave, loyal, and adventurous cavaliers, some I once saw in London
upon an old freight-list of a ship outward bound for Virginia, with the
addition of tinker and tailor, poacher and pickpocket, all to be sold
for life, or a term of years, to the highest bidder when they should
arrive. A large majority of the fathers of Virginia were unquestionably
of this class.

What was properly to be termed the gentry in Virginia and South
Carolina previous to the Revolution, was very small in number. A large
proportion of the families who composed it, and who remained after the
Revolution in the country (for many were Tories) have since passed in
all their branches through a poverty-stricken period, very dissipating
in its influence upon hereditary breeding, novelists and dramatic
old servants to the contrary notwithstanding. Many of those who have
retained wealth and family pride in succession to the present time,
have undeniably, from various causes, degenerated wofully in breeding.
Coarse tastes and brutal dispositions cannot be disguised under a
cavalier address, and the most assured readiness in the established
forms of polite society. Of the real “old families” which remain at all
“well bred” in their qualities, habits, and manners, by reason of their
lineage, I think it will be difficult for most readers who have not
studied the matter at all to form a sufficiently small estimate; call
them a dozen or a hundred, what does it matter in a region much larger
than the old German empire? Associating with these are a few hundred
more new or recuperated families, in which there is also the best
breeding, and in certain few parts or districts of the South, to be
defined and numbered without difficulty, there is a wealthy, distinct,
generous, hospitable, refined, and accomplished first class, clinging
with some pertinacity, although with too evident an effort, to the
traditional manners and customs of an established gentry.

There was a gentry in the North as well as in Virginia and Carolina
in the colony period, though a less important and numerous one. As the
North has been much more prosperous, as the value of its property has
much more rapidly increased than that of the South, the advantages
of wealth have, I believe, been more generally retained in families,
and probably the number of those who could trace their breeding in
an uninterrupted parental influence from the colonial gentry, is now
larger at the North than the South.

Including new families, in whose habits and manners and conversation
the best bred people of Europe would find nothing more offensive and
inharmonious with themselves than might be ascribed to local fashion
or a desire to avoid appearances which, though perfectly proper in
an aristocratic society, would be snobbish in a republic, there is
unquestionably at this time a very much larger number of thoroughly
well-bred people in the Free than in the Slave States. It is equally
certain that the proportion of such people to the whole population of
whites is larger at the North than the South.

The great majority of wealthy planters who at the present day assume
for themselves a special social respectability and superiority to
the class I have defined as the second, are, as a general rule, not
only distinguished for all those qualities which our satirists and
dramatists are accustomed to assume to be the especial property of the
newly rich of the Fifth Avenue, but, as far as I have had opportunity
to observe both classes, are far more generally and ridiculously so
than the would-be fashionable people of New York, or of any other
part of the United States. It is a part of the _rôle_ they undertake
to act, to be hospitable and generous, as it was lately that of our
fops to be sleepy and critical. They are not hospitable and generous,
however; they know not the meaning of these terms. They are absurdly
ostentatious in entertainment, and extravagant in the purchase of
notoriety; possibly they have more tact in this than our Potiphars, but
such has not been my personal observation.



CHAPTER IX.

THE DANGER OF THE SOUTH.


     “Before the advent of modern science, any idea of systematic laws
     of human improvement would have been deemed alike impossible
     and absurd; but the constant observation of facts, the exact
     statistics recorded, the progress of science in all departments,
     has made it possible to conceive of, and probable that there
     actually exist _uniform laws of social movement_, based upon any
     given condition of society. If the _elementary social_ condition
     be different in regard to religion, government, arts, science,
     industry, the resulting movements of society will be different.
     Hence, when we have ascertained by accurate observation upon
     and record of the social phenomena, that the social movement
     is uniformly in a certain direction, and that certain results
     uniformly follow, we shall know in what _elements_ the conditions
     of society must be changed, in order to change the results.
     Hence, when this law of social movements is ascertained, the
     philanthropist, legislator, and jurist will know precisely what
     must be done, and how, in order to remove the evils, or reform the
     wrongs, or produce the results they desire. They will know that
     _certain elementary conditions of society_ must be changed, and
     they well know that by removing temptations, or laying restraints,
     or enlightening the mind, or changing the course of industry, or
     producing new arts, they will change the social tendency, and
     thus change the results. * * * Society, or that part of it which
     thinks and acts, can change the results by changing the elementary
     conditions which produce them. When you know exactly what the
     change ought to be, it is not very difficult to produce it; nor
     does it follow that because a thousand crimes must be committed in
     Ohio, that a thousand particular individuals _must_ commit them.
     It is true that the individual frequently acts from motives, but
     is it not just as true that the individual frequently seeks these
     motives, and presents them to himself?”—_From the Report of the
     Ohio State Commissioner of Statistics_, 1859.

     “If there is a first principle in intellectual education it is
     this—that the discipline which does good to the mind is that in
     which the mind is active, not that in which it is passive. The
     secret for developing the faculties is to give them much to do,
     and much inducement to do it.”—_Mill’s Political Economy._

The field-hand negro is, on an average, a very poor and very bad
creature, much worse than I had supposed before I had seen him
and grown familiar with his stupidity, indolence, duplicity, and
sensuality. He seems to be but an imperfect man, incapable of taking
care of himself in a civilized manner, and his presence in large
numbers must be considered a dangerous circumstance to a civilized
people.

A civilized people, within which a large number of such creatures has
been placed by any means not within its own control, has claims upon
the charity, the aid, if necessary, of all other civilized peoples
in its endeavours to relieve itself from the danger which must be
apprehended from their brutal propensities, from the incompleteness
of their human sympathies—their inhumanity—from their natural love of
ease, and the barbaric want of forethought and providence, which would
often induce desperate want among them. Evidently the people thus
burthened would have need to provide systematically for the physical
wants of these poor creatures, else the latter would be liable to prey
with great waste upon their substance. Perhaps the very best thing to
do would be to collect them into small herds, and attach each herd
to a civilized family, the head of which should be responsible for
its safe keeping. Such a superintendent should of course contrive, if
possible, to make his herd contribute in some way to the procuring of
its necessary sustenance; and if, besides this, he even turned their
feeble abilities to such good account by his superior judgment, that
they actually procured a considerable surplus of food and clothing for
the benefit of others, should not Christendom applaud and encourage his
exertions, even if a certain amount of severity and physical constraint
had been found necessary to accomplish this success?

  *       *       *       *       *

Let us endeavour to assume a similar difficulty for ourselves. Let us
suppose that a large part—the proportion varying with the locality—of
our own community should next year suffer from some new malady, the
result of which should in no case be fatal, but which should, like
the _goître_ of Savoy, leave all who were affected by it permanently
injured in their intellects, with diminished bodily activity, and
fiercer animal propensities. (I take this method of stating the case,
because some of us who only see the negro as he exists at the North
might find it difficult to imagine him as he is known to the planters.)

Suppose, further, that this malady should be confined to certain
families, as if its seed had been received hundreds of years ago by
numerous individuals, and only their descendants (but all of these to
the most distant trace of the blood) now suffered from it. Also, that
some of our doctors should be of the opinion that the effects of the
malady upon the intellect would descend to the children, and to all
descendants of those who suffered. Suppose that these unfortunates
should be subject to certain hallucinations, that they should be liable
to think themselves sane and able to take care of themselves, and that
when possessed with these ideas that they should be quite cunning and
dangerous in attempting to exercise the usual prerogatives of sane men.

What should we do with them?

Finding them in a degree tractable; and sensible enough, after all, to
yield readily, if not cheerfully, to superior force, we might herd them
together on a sort of farm-hospitals, and let them earn their living,
giving especially capable men charge of many, and rewarding them with
good salaries, and ordinary small farmers, smaller numbers, with
smaller compensations for overseeing them?

Of course, we should place every possible legislative guard and check
upon these superintendents and overseers to secure fair and honest
dealing, to prevent them from making perquisites for themselves at
the expense of a reasonable comfort in their institutions. Careful
instructions to secure economical sustenance, and how to turn such
labour as could be got from the unfortunates to the best account, in
defraying the cost of their keeping, would also be framed by talented
men and furnished each keeper.

And having regard to national wealth, to the temporal good of the
commonwealth, this is about all that common sense would lead us to do,
at least through the agency of government.

  *       *       *       *       *

Is this all, reader?

You have too much overlooked our small matters of State, if you think
so. We have a few crazy people, a few fools, not enough to be a matter
of much consideration to our statesmen or legislators, yet we have a
State system in our dealing with them, such as it is, and such as it
is it puts our dealing with them on a little different footing than
would the system I have above imagined. What I have imagined is not
quite all we have for some time been in the habit of doing when we did
anything with this class. And judging from what we have done, it does
not seem as if it would be all that we should do in such an emergency
as I have supposed, engaging as it would all the talent of the country
to diminish as much as possible the necessary results of the calamity.

We should, it appears, call upon our learned doctors eagerly to
study; we should each of us eagerly observe for ourselves whether the
fearful infirmity by which so many were incapacitated for their former
usefulness, were not only absolutely incurable, but also absolutely
not possible to be alleviated. And if our observation should satisfy
us, if our doctors could not deny that, with judicious treatment, a
considerable alleviation could be effected, so much so indeed, that
with a very large part a close approximation to the normal condition of
sane and capable mankind could be obtained, there are doubtless those
amongst us who would think this a dangerous and an infidel presumption.
Just as every year some miserable wretch is found in our dark places
to have a crazy father or brother whom he keeps in a cage in his
garret, and whose estate he takes care of, and who is of the opinion
that it will be of no use, but, on the contrary, a manifest defiance
of Divine Providence, and most dangerous to life and property to let
this unfortunate out of his cage, to surround him with comforts, and
contrive for him cheerful occupation, as our State requires shall be
done. But would the average common sense and humanity of the people of
the Free States allow them to refuse all reduction from their usual
annual incomes; refuse to suffer all necessary addition to then usual
taxes; refuse to burden their minds with the difficulties of the
all-absorbing problem, in order to initiate a remedial system? Our
worst and most cowardly legislature would never dare adjourn leaving
this duty incompletely performed. There are thousands on thousands of
our citizens who would not only spare from their incomes, but would
divide their estates for such a purpose. There is not a county that
would not submit to the highest war taxes for it.

Suppose that the doctors and that the universal observation of the
community should determine that the defective class were not only
capable of being improved, but that so far as their limited intellects
permitted, the laws of improvement were the same for them as for
healthy men; that they were found to be influenced by a liking for
food and drink, for the society of each other and of sane men, for the
admiration and respect of each other and of sane men, for their ease,
for dancing, for music and other amusements; and that their imperfect
natures could be acted upon, drawn out, and enlarged by means of these
likings. Suppose that it were found that nearly all of them had still
some knowledge of religion, that although they were inclined sometimes
to consider sane men as their enemies, they were yet, in most cases,
by judicious play upon their inclinations and disinclinations, capable
of being trained quite beyond the most sagacious of our domestic
animals, even to read intelligently. Should we, because there were so
many of them, go back two hundred years in our civilization, denying
ourselves the addition which this capacity would give to their powers
of usefulness, and consequently of economy of maintenance; denying them
the advantages for improvement which we now in every State give to our
hopelessly insane, to our blind and mute, to our fools, to our worst
and most dangerous criminals.

Why do we not pass laws forbidding criminals and maniacs to read? Our
fathers did not allow them to read when negroes were introduced in
Virginia. But every man among us whom we call well informed, now knows
that it is a profitable business for the State, which has so little
profitable business, even to provide teachers and books for a portion
of her criminals, to allow books and encourage reading with all. To
provide books, to provide physicians, to provide teachers, to provide
halls and gardens of recreations, as stimulants to healthful thought
for our madmen and our fools; to this the State is impelled equally by
considerations of safety and of economy. Even Kentucky has its State
institution for the development of manhood in fools born of white women.

Does not every such man know, too, that, given an improvable mind with
a sound body, possessed of the natural instincts, the usual desires,
appetites, aversions, no matter if at starting the being is even what
we call an idiot, a drivelling imbecile, disgusting all who see him,
a sheer burden upon society, the process of making him clean in his
habits, capable of labouring with a good and intelligent purpose, and
of associating inoffensively with others, is just as certain in its
principles and in its progress—infinite progress—as the navigation of a
ship or the building of a house?

This is even so with a cretin, whose body is deformed beyond remedy,
whose brain is contracted, whose face is contorted, whose limbs are
half paralyzed, whose every organ is defective, and who has inherited
these conditions from goitrous parents and grandparents.

Dr. Seguin says: “The idiot wishes for nothing; he wishes only to
remain in his vacuity.”

Even so thinks Dr. Cartwright of the negro; and surely nothing worse
can be thought of him.

But Dr. Seguin adds: “To treat successfully this ill-will
[indisposition to take care of himself], the physician wills that
the idiot should act _and think himself, of himself and, finally,
by himself_. The incessant volition of the moral physican urges
incessantly the idiot into the sphere of activity of thinking, of
labour, of duty, and affectionate feelings.”

Is there no such law of progression of capacity for the black
imbeciles? All the laws of the South have the contrary aims: to
withdraw them as much as possible from the sphere of self-willed
activity, thought, labour—to prevent the negro from thinking by
himself, of himself, for himself; and the principle on which these laws
are based is thus defined by Mr. De Bow:—

     “The Almighty has thought well to place certain of His creatures
     in certain _fixed positions_ in this world of ours, for what
     cause He has not seen fit to make quite clear to our limited
     capacities; and why an ass is not a man, and a man is not an ass,
     will probably for ever remain a mystery.” “God made the world;
     God gave thee thy place, my hirsute brother, and, according to
     all earthly possibilities and probabilities, it is thy destiny
     there to remain, bray as thou wilt. From the same great power have
     our sable friends, Messrs. Sambo, Cuffee, & Co., received their
     position also.... Alas, my poor black brother! thou, like thy
     hirsute friend, must do thy braying in vain.”[66]

Are there laws on our statute-books to prevent asses from being taught
to read?

The _Richmond Examiner_ says—

     “These immigrants do not, like our ancestors, fly from religious
     and political persecution; they come merely as animals in search
     of a richer and fresher pasture. They come to gratify physical
     want—for moral, intellectual, or religious wants they have not
     acquired. They will settle in large masses, and, for ages to come,
     will practise and inculcate a pure (or rather impure) materialism.
     Mormonism is a fit exponent, proof, and illustration of our
     theory. The mass of them are sensual, grovelling, low-minded
     agrarians, and nine-tenths of them would join the Mormons, or some
     such brutal, levelling sect, if an opportunity offered to do so.

     “European writers describe a large class of population throughout
     England and the Continent as being distinguished by restless,
     wandering, nomadic habits, and by a peculiar conformation of the
     skull and face. Animal and sensual nature largely predominates,
     with them, over the moral and intellectual. It is they who commit
     crimes, fill prisons, and adorn the gallows. They will not submit
     to the restraints of law or religion, nor can they be educated.
     From their restless and lawless habits, we should infer they
     composed a large part of the northern immigration.”

If all this were true, and were felt by us to be true, should we think
it necessary to put the minds of these beings in fetters? Should we
hold it to be dangerous if one should undertake to strengthen their
intellects, to give them larger ideas?

If all the slaves in the United States were “real Congo niggers,”
which not one in a thousand is, and if all real Congo niggers were as
incapable, and as beastly, and as savage in their propensities as the
very worst of them are asserted to be, would the method of dealing with
them which the legislation of the Slave States, and which a large part
of the labour of the Congress and Executive of our nation is directed
to the purpose of perpetuating, be felt to be strictly in accordance
with sound and well-established economico-political principles? The
purpose of that legislation is avowed to be merely to secure safety
with economy. Would a project for establishing an institution planned
upon the principles of the ancient Bedlam and the ancient Bridewell
be felt to-day to be completely justified among us, by the statement
that highwaymen and maniacs will endanger life and the security of our
property if they are not somehow taken care of?

If there had been no Mettray with its Demetz, no Norfolk Island with
its Machonochie, no Hanwell with its Connolly, no Abendberg with its
Guggenbuhl; if the courage, devotion, and labour of Pinel, Sicard, and
Seguin had been in vain; if there had been no progress in the science
of civilized society since the days of Howard, we might listen with
merely silent sadness to such, an excuse for debilitating the weak, for
holding down the fallen; for permitting brutal keepers to exasperate
the mad, and mercenary nurses to stupefy the idiotic; we might, if
we saw it to be necessary to preserve a civilized community from
destruction, even give its object our aid; but with the knowledge which
in our time is everywhere else acted upon, it is impossible for us not
to feel that such an argument is a specious and a fallacious one, and
that no State can long act upon it with safety, much less with economy.

And surely the system by which intellectual demands and ambition are
repressed in the negro is as little calculated to produce the security
which is its object, as it is to turn his physical abilities to the
most profitable use for his owner. How far it fails in this respect,
the extra-legal measures of safety and the semi-instinctive habits of
unconscious precaution which pervade Southern society evince. I say
unconscious precaution, because Southerners themselves seem to have
generally a very inadequate idea of the influence of slavery upon their
habits in this way, and this is very natural.

“Every habit breeds unconsciousness of its existence in the mind
of the man whom it controls, and this is more true of habits which
involve our safety than of any others. The weary sailor aloft, on the
look-out, may fall asleep; but, in the lurch of the ship, his hands
will clench the swaying cordage only the more firmly, that they act in
the method of instinct. A hard-hunted fugitive may nod in his saddle,
but his knees will not unloose their hold upon his horse. Men who live
in powder-mills are said to lose all conscious feeling of habitual
insecurity; but visitors perceive that they have acquired a constant
softness of manner and of voice.

“If a labourer on a plantation should insolently contradict his
master, it may often appear to be no more than a reasonable precaution
for his master to kill him on the spot; for, when a slave has acquired
such boldness, it may be evident that not merely is his value as
property seriously diminished, but that the attempt to make further
use of him at all, as property, involves in danger the whole white
community. ‘If I let this man live, and permit him the necessary degree
of freedom to be further useful to me, he will infect with his audacity
all my negro property, which will be correspondingly more difficult to
control, and correspondingly reduced in value. If he treats me with so
little respect now, what have I to anticipate when he has found other
equally independent spirits among the slaves? They will not alone
make themselves free, but will avenge upon me, and my wife, and my
daughters, and upon all our community, the injustice which they will
think has been done them, and their women, and children.’ Thus would
he reason, and shudder to think what might follow if he yielded to an
impulse of mercy.

“To suppose, however, that the master will pause while he thus weighs
the danger exactly, and then deliberately act as, upon reflection,
he considers the necessities of the case demand, is absurd. The
mere circumstance of his doing so would nourish a hopeful spirit in
the slave, and stimulate him to consider how he could best avoid
all punishment. Hence the instinct-like habit of precaution with
individuals, and hence the frenzy which often seizes whole communities.

“But ‘planters sleep unguarded, and with their bedroom doors open.’
So, as it was boasted, did the Emperor at Biarritz, and with greater
bravery, because the assassin of Napoleon would be more sure, in
despatching him, that there would be no one left with a vital interest
to secure punishment for such a deed: and because, if he failed,
Napoleon dare never employ such exemplary punishment for his enemies as
would the planters for theirs. The emperors of the South are the whole
free society of the South, and it is a society of mutual assurance.
Against a slave who has the disposition to become an assassin, his
emperor has a bodyguard, which, for general effectiveness, is to the
Cent Garde as your right hand is to your right hand’s glove.

“It is but a few months since, in Georgia or Alabama, a man treated
another precisely as Mr. Brooks treated Mr. Sumner—coming up behind
him, with the fury of a madman, and felling him with a bludgeon;
killing him by the first blow, however, and then discharging vengeance
by repeated strokes upon his senseless body.[67] The man thus pitifully
abused had been the master of the other, a remarkably confiding and
merciful master, it was said—too much so. ‘It never does to be too
slack with niggers.’ By such indiscretion he brought his death upon
him. But did his assassin escape? He was roasted, at a slow fire,
on the spot of the murder, in the presence of many thousand slaves,
driven to the ground from all the adjoining counties, and when, at
length, his life went out, the fire was intensified until his body was
in ashes, which were scattered to the winds and trampled under foot.
Then ‘magistrates and clergymen’ addressed appropriate warnings to the
assembled subjects. It was not thought indiscreet to leave doors open
again that night.

“Will any traveller say that he has seen no signs of discontent, or
insecurity, or apprehension, or precaution; that the South has appeared
quieter and less excited, even on the subject of slavery, than the
North; that the negroes seem happy and contented, and the citizens
more tranquilly engaged in the pursuit of their business and pleasure?
Has that traveller been in Naples? Precisely the same remarks apply
to the appearance of things there at this moment [the moment of this
writing—it was in 1857].

“The massacre of Hayti opened in a ball-room. Mr. Cobden judged there
was not the smallest reason in the French king’s surrounding himself
with soldiers the day before the hidden force of insubordination broke
forth and cast him forth from his kingdom. It is true, however, that
the tranquillity of the South is the tranquillity of Hungary and of
Poland, rather than of France or the Two Sicilies; the tranquillity of
hopelessness on the part of the subject race. But, in the most favoured
regions, this broken spirit of despair is as carefully preserved by
the citizens, and with as confident and unhesitating an application
of force, when necessary to teach humility, as it is by the army
of the Czar, or the omnipresent police of the Kaiser. In Richmond,
and Charleston, and New Orleans, the citizens are as careless and
gay as in Boston or London, and their servants a thousand times as
childlike and cordial, to all appearance, in their relations with them
as our servants are with us. But go to the bottom of this security
and dependence, and you come to police machinery such as you never
find in towns under free government: citadels, sentries, passports,
grape-shotted cannon, and daily public whippings for accidental
infractions of police ceremonies. I happened myself to see more direct
expression of tyranny in a single day and night at Charleston, than at
Naples [under Bomba] in a week; and I found that more than half the
inhabitants of this town were subject to arrest, imprisonment, and
barbarous punishment, if found in the streets without a passport after
the evening ‘gun-fire.’ Similar precautions and similar customs may be
discovered in every large town in the South.

“Nor is it so much better, as is generally imagined, in the rural
districts. Ordinarily there is no show of government any more than
at the North: the slaves go about with as much apparent freedom as
convicts in a dockyard. There is, however, nearly everywhere, always
prepared to act, if not always in service, an armed force, with a
military organization, which is invested with more arbitrary and
cruel power than any police in Europe. Yet the security of the whites
is in a much less degree contingent on the action of the ‘patrols’
than upon the constant, habitual, and instinctive surveillance and
authority of all white people over all black. I have seen a gentleman,
with no commission or special authority, oblige negroes to show their
passports, simply because he did not recognize them as belonging to
any of his neighbours. I have seen a girl, twelve years old, in a
district where, in ten miles, the slave population was fifty to one of
the free, stop an old man on the public road, demand to know where he
was going, and by what authority, order him to face about and return
to his plantation, and enforce her command with turbulent anger, when
he hesitated, by threatening that she would have him well whipped
if he did not instantly obey. The man quailed like a spaniel, and
she instantly resumed the manner of a lovely child with me, no more
apprehending that she had acted unbecomingly, than that her character
had been influenced by the slave’s submission to her caprice of
supremacy; no more conscious that she had increased the security of her
life by strengthening the habit of the slave to the master race, than
is the sleeping seaman that he tightens his clutch of the rigging as
the ship meets each new billow.

“There is no part of the South in which the people are more free
from the direct action of slavery upon the character, or where they
have less to apprehend from rebellion, than Eastern Tennessee. Yet,
after the burning of a negro near Knoxville, a few years ago, the
deed was justified, as necessary for the maintenance of order among
the slaves, by the editor of a newspaper (the _Register_), in the
following terms:—‘It was,’ he observed, ‘a means of absolute, necessary
self-defence, which could not be secured by an ordinary resort to
the laws. Two executions on the gallows have occurred in this county
within a year or two past, and the example has been unavailing. Four
executions by hanging have taken place, heretofore, in Jefferson, of
slaves guilty of similar offences, and it has produced no radical
terror or example for the others designing the same crimes, and hence
any example less horrible and terrifying would have availed nothing
here.’

“The other local paper (the _Whig_), upon the same occasion, used the
following language:—

“‘We have to say in defence of the act, that it was not perpetrated by
an excited multitude, but by one thousand citizens—good citizens at
that—who were cool, calm, and deliberate.’

“And the editor, who is a Methodist preacher, presently adds, after
explaining the enormity of the offence with which the victim was
charged—‘We unhesitatingly affirm that the punishment was unequal to
the crime. Had we been there we should have taken a part, and even
suggested the pinching of pieces out of him with red-hot pincers—the
cutting off of a limb at a time, and then burning them all in a heap.
The possibility of his escaping from jail forbids the idea of awaiting
the tardy movements of the law.’ [Although one thousand trusty citizens
volunteered to guard him at the stake.]

“How much more horrible than the deed are these apologies for it.
They make it manifest that it was not accidental in its character, but
a phenomenon of general and fundamental significance. They explain the
paralytic effect upon the popular conscience of the great calamity of
the South. They indicate a necessary tendency of people living under
such circumstances to return in their habits of thought to the dark
ages of mankind. For who, from the outside, can fail to see that the
real reason why men in the middle of the nineteenth century, and in
the centre of the United States, are publicly burned at the stake, is
one much less heathenish, less disgraceful to the citizens than that
given by the more zealous and extemporaneous of their journalistic
exponents—the desire to torture the sinner proportionately to the
measure of his sin. Doubtless, this reverend gentleman expresses
the utmost feeling of the ruling mind of his community. But would a
similar provocation have developed a similar avenging spirit in any
other nominally Christian or civilized people? Certainly not. All
over Europe, and in every Free State—California, for significant
reasons, temporarily excepted—in similar cases, justice deliberately
takes its course; the accused is systematically assisted in defending
or excusing himself. If the law demands his life, the infliction of
unnecessary suffering, and the education of the people in violence and
feelings of revenge, is studiously avoided. Go back to the foundation
of the custom which thus neutralizes Christianity among the people
of the South, which carries them backward blindly against the tide
of civilization, and what do we find it to be? The editor who still
retains moral health enough to be suspected—as men more enlightened
than their neighbours usually are—of heterodoxy, answers. To follow
the usual customs of civilization elsewhere would not be felt safe. To
indulge in feelings of humanity would not be felt safe. To be faithful
to the precepts of Christ would not be felt safe. To act in a spirit
of cruel, inconsiderate, illegal, violent, and pitiless vengeance,
must be permitted, must be countenanced, must be defended by the most
conservative, as a ‘means of absolute, necessary self-defence.’ To
educate the people practically otherwise would be felt to be suicidal.
Hence no free press, no free pulpit, no free politics can be permitted
in the South. Hence every white stripling in the South may carry a
dirk-knife in his pocket, and play with a revolver before he has
learned to swim.”[68]

I happened to pass through Tennessee shortly after this tragedy,
and conversed with a man who was engaged in it—a mild, common-sense
native of the country. He told me that there was no evidence against
the negro but his own confession. I suggested that he might have been
crazy. “What if he was?” he asked with a sudden asperity. What if he
was, to be sure? The slaves who were brought together to witness his
torture were not insane. They were at least capable of instruction.
That day they were given a lesson; were taught to know their masters
better; were taught that when ordinary and legal discipline failed,
resort would be had to more potent means of governing them. A better
informed man, having regard to the ignorance of a stranger, might have
answered me: “It was of no consequence, practically, whether he were
sane or mad. We do not wish our slaves to study the right and the wrong
of every exciting occurrence. To say that being mad the negro was not
responsible, therefore not guilty of a crime, therefore not to be
punished, would be proclaiming to them that only that which is wrong is
to be dreaded. Whatever offends us, whatever is against our will and
pleasure, is what a slave must be made to dread.”

Constantly, and everywhere throughout the South, are there occurrences
of this significance; I do not say as horrible, though I can answer
for it, that no year in the last ten has passed without something as
bad;[69] but constantly and everywhere of the same nature, of the same
impulse, the same reasoning, the same purposes, the same disregard of
principles of society, which no people can ever set aside and not have
reason to feel their situation insecure. It is false, it is the most
dangerous mistake possible to assume that this feeling of insecurity,
this annihilation of the only possible basis of security in human
society, is, in the slightest degree, the result of modern agitation.
It is the fundamental law of slavery, as distinctly appears in the
decision of Justice Ruffin, of North Carolina, in the case of the State
_v._ Mann.[70] The American system of slavery from its earliest years
(as shown p. 496, “Seaboard Slave States”), and without cessation to
the present time, has had this accompaniment. Less in the last twenty
years, if anything, than before. Would it not be more just to say that
this element of the present system was the cause of agitation? Must
not the determined policy of the South to deal with slavery on the
assumption that it is, in its present form, necessary, just, good, and
to be extended, strengthened, and perpetuated indefinitely, involve
constant agitation as a necessary incident of the means used to carry
it out? I do not say with you or with me, reader, but with a goodly
number of any civilized community? Do you not, who wish to think
otherwise, consider that it will always require what you must deem a
superior mind not to be overcome by incidents necessary to the carrying
out of this determination? And will not such agitation give renewed
sense of danger, and occasion renewed demands for assurance from us?

I have remarked before that in no single instance did I find an
inquiry of the owner or the overseer of a large plantation about the
poor whites of its vicinity fail to elicit an expression indicating
habitual irritation with them. This equally with the polished and
tranquil gentleman of South Carolina and the rude pioneer settler of
Texas, himself born a dirt-eating sand-hiller. It was evident in most
cases, and in one it was distinctly explained to me by a Louisianian
planter, that the reason of this was not merely the bad effect upon
the discipline of the plantation, which was had by the intercourse
between these people and the slaves, but that it was felt that the
contrast between the habits of the former—most of the time idle,
and when working, working only for their own benefit and without a
master—constantly offered suggestions and temptations to the slaves to
neglect their duty, to run away and live a vagabond life, as these poor
whites were seen to. Hence, one of the acknowledged advantages of very
large and isolated plantations, and hence, in part, the desire of every
planter to get possession of the land of any poor non-slaveholding
neighbour.

As few Southern writers seem to have noticed this, I suppose that few
Southerners are aware how universal with planters is this feeling.
My attention being early directed to the causes of the condition of
the poor whites, I never failed to make inquiries of planters, and of
intelligent men especially, about those in their neighbourhood; and
being soon struck by the constant recurrence of similar expressions
with regard to them, I was the more careful to introduce the subject at
every proper opportunity, and, I repeat, always with the same result.
I am afraid that the feeling of the South to the North is (more or
less defined in individual minds) of the same nature, and that the
contiguity of a people whose labourers take care of themselves, and
labour industriously without being owned, can never be felt to be safe
by slaveholders. That it must always be looked upon with apprehension,
with a sense of danger, more or less vague, more or less well defined,
but always sufficient to lead to efforts intended to counteract its
natural influence—its influence not so much with slaves, certainly
not alone with the slaves, but also with that important element of
population which reaps no profit from the good behaviour of the slaves.

In De Bow’s “Review” for January, 1850, will be found the following
passage in an article discussing the practicability of employing the
non-slaveholding whites in factories, the argument being that there
will be less danger of their becoming “Abolitionists” under such
circumstances than at present exists:-

     “The great mass of our poor white population begin to understand
     that they have rights, and that they, too, are entitled to some
     of the sympathy which falls upon the suffering. They are fast
     learning that there is an almost infinite world of industry
     opening before them by which they can elevate themselves and
     their families from wretchedness and ignorance to competence and
     intelligence. It is this great upheaving of our masses that we
     have to fear, so far as our institutions are concerned.”

It is, in the nature of things, while slaveholders refuse the
slightest concession to the spirit of the age—while, in their
legislation, they refuse to recognize, in the slightest degree, the
principles of social science under which we live, and must live, and
which every civilized people has fully adopted, that they should
endeavour to make it appear the fault of others that they do not feel
assured of safety and at ease with themselves; that they should try
to make their own ignorant people believe that it is from without all
danger is to be apprehended—all assurance of safety to be clamoured
for—that they should endeavour to make themselves believe it.[71]

Those who seriously propose to stop all agitation on the subject of
slavery, by causing the Abolitionists to refrain from proceedings
which cause apprehension at the South, by silencing all who entertain
sentiments the utterance of which is deemed a source of “danger to
Southern institutions,” by refraining themselves from all proceedings
which will be looked upon with alarm by their fellow-citizens of the
Slave States, can know very little of what would be required before the
South were satisfied. The destruction of some million dollars’ cost in
school and text books would be one of the first things, and yet but
a small item in the undertaking. Books which directly comment upon
slavery are considered comparatively safe, because their purpose being
defined, they can be guarded against. As is well understood, it is the
insidious attacks of a free press that are most feared. But is it well
understood what are felt to be “insidious attacks?” Some idea may be
formed from the following passages which I take, not from the heated
columns of a daily newspaper, but from the cool pages of the deliberate
De Bow’s “Review.” The apprehension they express is not of to-day; in
the first article from which I quote (which was published in the middle
of Mr. Pierce’s presidential term), reference is made to warnings of
the same character which have been sounded from time to time before;
and this very number of the “Review” contains a testimonial from
fifty-five Southern senators and representatives in Congress to the
“ability and accuracy” of its “exposition of the working of the system
of polity of the Southern States.”

     “Our text books are abolition books. They are so to the extent of
     their capacity.”... “We have been too careless and indifferent to
     the import of these things.”

     “And so long as we use such works as ‘Wayland’s Moral Science,’
     and the abolition geographies, readers, and histories,
     overrunning, as they do, with all sorts of slanders, caricatures,
     and blood-thirsty sentiments, let us never complain of their
     [northern Church people’s] use of that transitory romance [Uncle
     Tom’s Cabin]. They seek to array our children by false ideas,
     against the established ordinance of God; and it sometimes takes
     effect. A professor in one of our Southern seminaries, not long
     since placed in the hands of a pupil ‘Wayland’s Moral Science,’
     and informed her that the chapter on slavery was heretical
     and unscriptural, and that she would not be examined on that
     chapter, and need not study it. _Perhaps_ she didn’t. But on the
     day of examination she wished her teacher to tell her ‘if that
     chapter was heretical how she was to know but they were all so?’
     We might enumerate many other books of similar character and
     tendencies. But we will refer to only one more—it is ‘Gilbert’s
     Atlas’—though the real author’s name does not appear on the title
     page. On the title page it is called ‘Appleton’s Complete Guide
     of the World;’ published by D. Appleton & Co, New York. This is
     an elegant and comprehensive volume, endorsed by the Appletons
     and sent South, containing hidden lessons of the most fiendish
     and murderous character that enraged fanaticism could conceive
     or indite.[72] It is a sort of literary and scientific infernal
     machine. And whatever the design may have been, the tendency
     is as shocking as the imagination can picture.... This is the
     artillery and these the implements England and our own recreant
     sister States are employing to overturn the order of society
     and the established forms of labour that date back beyond the
     penning of the decalogue.... This book, and many other Northern
     school-books scattered over the country, come within the range of
     the statutes of this State, which provide for the imprisonment for
     life or the infliction of the penalty of death upon any person who
     shall ‘publish or distribute’ such works; and were I a citizen
     of New Orleans, this work should not escape the attention of the
     grand jury. But need I add more to convince the sceptical of the
     necessity there is for the production of our own text-books,
     and, may I not add, our own literature? Why should the land of
     domestic servitude be less productive in the great works of the
     mind now than when Homer evoked the arts, poetry, and eloquence
     into existence? Moses wrote the Genesis of Creation, the Exodus of
     Israel, and the laws of mankind? and when Cicero, Virgil, Horace,
     St. John, and St. Paul became the instructors of the world?[73]...
     They will want no cut-throat literature, no fire-brand moral
     science ... nor Appleton’s ‘Complete Atlas,’ to encourage crimes
     that would blanch the cheek of a pirate, nor any of the ulcerous
     and polluting agencies issuing from the hot-beds of abolition
     fanaticism.”

From an article on educational reform at the South, in the same
“Review,” 1856, I take the following indications of what, among other
Northern doings, are considered to imperil the South:—

     “‘Lovell’s United States Speaker,’ the ‘National Reader,’ the
     ‘Young Ladies’ Reader,’ ‘Columbian Orator,’ ‘Scott’s Lessons,’
     the ‘Village Reader,’ and numerous others, have been used for
     years, and are all, in some respects, valuable compilations.
     We apprehend, however, there are few parents or teachers who
     are familiar with the whole of their contents, or they would
     demand expurgated editions for the use of their children. _The
     sickly sentimentality of the poet Cowper_, whose ear became so
     ‘pained,’ and his soul ‘sick with every day’s report of wrong and
     outrage,’ that it made him cry out in agony for ‘a lodge in some
     vast wilderness,’ where he might commune with howling wolves and
     panthers on the blessings of _liberty_ (?), stamps its infectious
     poison upon many of the pages of these works.”...

     “From the American First Class Book, page 185, we quote another
     more modern sentiment, which bears no less higher authority than
     the name of the great Massachusetts statesman, Mr. Webster:”

Having burnt or expurgated Webster and Cowper, is it to be imagined
that the leaders of opinion in the South would yet be willing to permit
familiar intercourse between themselves and a people who allowed a book
containing ‘Such lines as these to circulate freely?—

                 “What is a man
     If his chief good and market of his time
     Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.
     Sure, He that made us with such large discourse,
     Looking before and after, gave us not
     That capability and Godlike reason,
     To rust unused.”

What a dangerous sentiment to come by any chance to a slave! Is it
not? Are you, then, prepared to burn your Shakespeare? I will not
ask if you will have another book “expurgated,” of all passages the
tendency of which is to set the bondmen free.

If the security of life and property at the South must for ever
be dependent on the thoroughness with which the negro population is
prevented from acquiring knowledge; from thinking of themselves and
for themselves, it will never be felt to be greater than it is to-day.
Efforts made to increase this security will of themselves occasion
agitation, and agitation must counteract those efforts. Knowledge,
knowledge of what is going on elsewhere, of the condition of men
elsewhere, of what is thought elsewhere, must have increased currency
with every class of mankind in all parts of this continent, as it
increases in population, and the movements of its population increase
in activity and importance. No human laws, embargoes, or armies
and navies can prevent it. Do our utmost, we cannot go back of the
steam-engine, the telegraph, the cotton-gin, and the cylinder press.
The South has admitted steamboats and railroads. It was not practicable
to stop with these, and bar out all the rest that is peculiar to the
nineteenth century. Is it practicable to admit the machinery of modern
civilized life, and not stir up its free people? Is it practicable to
stir up its intermediate class, and keep its lowest torpid? Assuredly
the security which depends upon preventing either of these steps can
never be permanently increased; spite of all possible further extension
of slave territory, and dispersion and disconnection of plantations,
it must gradually lessen. As it lessens, the demand upon the nation
to supply new grounds of security must increase—increase continually,
until at length, this year, next year, or another, they conclusively
and hopelessly fail. It may cost us much or it may cost us little to
reach that point, but it is inevitably to be reached. It may be after
long and costly civil war, or longer and more costly foreign wars,
or it may be peaceably, sensibly, and soon, but it must come. The
annexation of Cuba, international fugitive slave laws,[74] the African
slave trade, judgments of the Supreme Court, and whatever else may
be first asked and given, will not prevent it—nothing the North will
do, nothing the North can do, will prevent it. The proximity of a
people who cannot hold labour in contempt; who cannot keep labourers
in ignorance and permanent dependence each upon another man; who
cannot have an effective censorship of the press, or a trustworthy
army of _mouchards_, prevents, and must always prevent, the South from
standing with the slightest confidence of safety on that policy which
it proclaims to be its only ground of safety. Nothing but a reversal
of the current of our Northern history for half a century, nothing, in
fact, but the enslavement of labour at the North, could in the nature
of things, give that security, even temporarily, to the capitalists of
labour at the South which they need.[75] Some demand of the South upon
the nation, acquiescence in which it holds essential to its safety,
must then at length be distinctly refused. And when, ten or twenty
years hence, if so be, this shall come to pass, what then is to happen
to us?

Dissolution?

This is what many Southern politicians avow, whenever they contemplate
such a contingency.

Why?

Because it is known that the people of the North are unwilling that
the Union should be dissolved, whereas they have no indisposition
to the only course which it will then be possible for the South to
adopt, for the sake of increasing the security of its citizens,
against insurrectionary movements of its slaves. This plainly would
be to arrange a systematic opportunity and method for the slaves
to labour, whenever they chose, and as much as they might choose,
in an orderly, peaceable, and wise way, for their own release and
improvement, each man for himself and those most dear to him; each man
by himself, independently, openly, with no occasion for combination,
secrecy, plots, or conspiracy. To prepare, for those disposed to avail
themselves of it, a field, either here or elsewhere, in which their
capability and Godlike reason, such as it may be, little or great, need
not be forced by law to rust unused, or brighten _only_ to the material
advantage of a master. This I must think to be consciously, even now,
the only final course of safety before every reflective Southern mind.
This, or——dissolution, and the chances of war.

  *       *       *       *       *

[The above was written before Mr. Lincoln was spoken of as a candidate
for the Presidency.]



APPENDIX (A.)

THE CONDITION OF VIRGINIA.—STATISTICS.


1.

The _Richmond Enquirer_, a strong and influential pro-slavery newspaper
of Virginia, in advocating some railroad projects, thus describes the
progress of the State relatively to that of some of the Free States,
since the Revolution. (Dec. 29, 1852.)

     “Virginia, anterior to the Revolution, and up to the adoption
     of the Federal Constitution, contained more wealth and a larger
     population than any other State of this Confederacy. * * *

     “Virginia, from being first in point of wealth and political
     power, has come down to the fifth in the former, and the fourth in
     the latter. New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Ohio stand
     above her in wealth, and all, but Massachusetts, in population and
     political power. Three of these States are literally chequered
     over with railroads and canals; and the fourth (Massachusetts)
     with railroads alone. * * *

     “But when we find that the population of the single city of New
     York and its environs exceeds the whole free population of Eastern
     Virginia, and the valley between the Blue Ridge and Alleghany, we
     have cause to feel deeply for our situation. Philadelphia herself
     contains a population far greater than the whole free population
     of Eastern Virginia. The little State of Massachusetts has an
     aggregate wealth exceeding that of Virginia by more than one
     hundred and twenty-six millions of dollars—a State, too, which is
     incapable of subsisting its inhabitants from the production of
     its soil. And New York, which was as much below Massachusetts, at
     the adoption of the Federal Constitution, in wealth and power, as
     the latter was below Virginia, now exceeds the wealth of both.
     While the aggregate wealth of New York, in 1850, amounted to
     $1,080,309,216, that of Virginia was $436,701,082—a difference
     in favour of the former of $643,608,134. The unwrought mineral
     wealth of Virginia exceeds that of New York. The climate and soil
     are better; the back country, with equal improvements, would
     contribute as much.”

The same journal adds, on another occasion:—

     “In no State of the Confederacy do the facilities for
     manufacturing operations exist in greater profusion than
     in Virginia. Every condition essential to success in these
     employments is found here in prodigal abundance, and in a
     peculiarly convenient combination. First, we have a limitless
     supply of water power—the cheapest of motors—in localities easy of
     access. So abundant is this supply of water power that no value
     is attached to it distinct from the adjacent lands, except in the
     vicinity of the larger towns. On the Potomac and its tributaries;
     on the Rappahannock; on the James and its tributaries; on the
     Roanoke and its tributaries; on the Holston, the Kanawha, and
     other streams, numberless sites may now be found where the supply
     of water power is sufficient for the purposes of a Lawrence or a
     Lowell. Nor is there any want of material for building at these
     localities; timber and granite are abundant; and, to complete the
     circle of advantages, the climate is genial and healthful, and the
     soil eminently productive. * * * Another advantage which Virginia
     possesses, for the manufacture of cotton, is the proximity of its
     mills to the raw material. At the present prices of the staple,
     the value of this advantage is estimated at 10 per cent.”

The _Lynchburg Virginian_, another newspaper of respectability, having
a similar purpose in hand, namely, to induce capitalists to invest
their money in enterprises that shall benefit the State, observes that—

     “The coal fields of Virginia are the most extensive in the world,
     and her coal is of the best and purest quality. Her iron deposits
     are altogether inexhaustible, and in many instances so pure that
     it is malleable in its primitive state; and many of these deposits
     in the immediate vicinity of extensive coal-fields. She has, too,
     very extensive deposits of copper, lead, and gypsum. Her rivers
     are numerous and bold, generally with fall enough for extensive
     water power.

     “A remarkable feature in the mining and manufacturing prospects
     of Virginia is, the ease and economy with which all her minerals
     are mined; instead of being, as in England and elsewhere,
     generally imbedded deep within the bowels of the earth, from
     which they can be got only with great labour and at great cost,
     ours are found everywhere on the hills and slopes, with their
     ledges dipping in the direction of the plains below. Why, then,
     should not Virginia at once employ at least half of her labour and
     capital in mining and manufacturing? Richmond could as profitably
     manufacture all cotton and woollen goods as Lowell, or any other
     town in New England. Why should not Lynchburg, with all her
     promised facility of getting coal and pig metal, manufacture all
     articles of iron and steel just as cheaply, and yet as profitably,
     as any portion of the Northern States? Why should not every town
     and village on the line of every railroad in the State, erect
     their shops, in which they may manufacture a thousand articles
     of daily consumption, just as good and cheap as they may be made
     anywhere? * * *

     “Dependent upon Europe and the North for almost every yard of
     cloth, and every coat, and boot, and hat we wear; for our axes,
     scythes, tubs, and buckets—in short, for everything except our
     bread and meat!—it must occur to the South that if our relations
     with the North should ever be severed—and how soon they may be,
     none can know (may God avert it long!)—we would, in all the South,
     not be able to clothe ourselves. We could not fell our forests,
     plough our fields, nor mow our meadows. In fact, we would be
     reduced to a state more abject than we are willing to look at even
     prospectively. And yet, with all these things staring us in the
     face, we shut our eyes, and go on blindfold.”

At the Convention for the formation of the Virginia State Agricultural
Society, in 1852, the draft of an address to the farmers of the State
was read, approved, and once adopted by the Convention. The vote by
which it was adopted was soon afterwards reconsidered, and it was again
approved and adopted. A second time it was reconsidered; and finally
it was rejected, on the ground that there were admissions in it that
would feed the fanaticism of the Abolitionists. No one argued against
it on the ground of the falsity or inaccuracy of these admissions.
Twenty of the most respectable proprietors in the State, immediately
afterwards, believing it to contain “matter of grave import,” which
should not be suppressed for such a reason, united in requesting a copy
of it for publication. In the note of these gentlemen to the author,
they express the belief that Virginia now “possesses the richest soil,
most genial climate, and cheapest labour on earth.” The author of the
address, in his reply, says: “Fanaticism is a fool for whose vagaries I
am not responsible. I am a pro-slavery man—I believe it, at this time,
impossible to abolish it, and not desirable if it were possible.”

The address was accordingly published, and I make the following
extracts from it:—

     “ADDRESS TO THE FARMERS OF VIRGINIA.

     “‘The Southern States stand foremost in agricultural labour,
     though they hold but the third rank in population.’ At the head of
     these Southern States, in production, in extent of territory, in
     climate, in soil, and in population, stands the Commonwealth of
     Virginia. She is a nation of farmers. Eight-tenths of her industry
     is expended upon the soil; but less than one-third of her domain
     is in pasturage, or under the plough.

     “Out of somewhat more than thirty-nine millions of acres,
     she tills but little over ten millions of acres, or about
     twenty-six and a quarter per cent., whilst New York has subdued
     about forty-one per cent., or twelve and a quarter out of her
     twenty-nine and a half millions of acres: and Massachusetts, with
     her sterile soil and inhospitable climate, has reclaimed from the
     forest, the quarry, and the marsh, about forty-two and a half per
     cent., or two and one-eighth out of her little territory of five
     millions of acres. Yet, according to the census of 1840, only
     six-tenths of the labour of New York, and four-tenths of that of
     Massachusetts, or, relatively, one-fifth and two-fifths less than
     our own, is expended upon agriculture. * * *

     “The live stock of Virginia are worth only three dollars and
     thirty-one cents for every arable acre; but in New York they are
     worth six dollars and seven cents, and in Massachusetts four
     dollars and fifty-two cents.

     “The proportion of hay for the same quantity of land is,
     for Virginia, eighty-one pounds; for New York, six hundred
     and seventy-nine pounds; for Massachusetts, six hundred and
     eighty-four pounds. * * *

     “With access to the same markets, and with hundreds of mechanics
     of our own, who can vie with the best Northern manufacturers, we
     find that our implements are inferior, that the New York farmer
     spends upon his nearly three times as much as we do upon ours, and
     the Massachusetts farmer more than double. * * *

     “Manure is indispensable to good husbandry. Judging from the
     history of agriculture in all other countries, we may safely say,
     that farming can never attain to continued perfection where manure
     is not put on with an unsparing hand. By far the larger part of
     this can only be made by stock, which should, at the same time,
     be made the source of profit, at least sufficient to pay the cost
     of their keep, so that, _other things being equal_, it is a safe
     rule to estimate the condition of a farming district by the amount
     of live stock it may possess, and the provision made for their
     sustenance. Applied in this instance, we see that the New York
     farmer has invested in live stock two dollars and seventy-six
     cents, and the Massachusetts farmer one dollar and twenty-one
     cents per acre more than the Virginia farmer. In pasturage we
     cannot tell the difference. It is well, perhaps, for the honour
     of the State, that we cannot. But in hay, New York has five
     hundred and ninety-eight pounds, and Massachusetts six hundred
     and three pounds more per acre than we have. This, however, does
     not present the true state of the case. Land-locked by mountain
     barriers, as yet impassable for the ordinary agricultural staples,
     or debarred from their production by distance and prohibitory
     rates of transportation, most of the wealth and exports of many
     considerable portions of our State consists of live stock alone.
     What proportion these parts bear to the whole, we have been unable
     definitely to ascertain; but it is, no doubt, so great as to
     warrant us in assuming a much more considerable disparity than the
     statistics show in the live stock of the whole Atlantic slope, as
     compared with New York and Massachusetts. And we shall appreciate,
     still more highly, the skill of the Northern farmer, if we reflect
     that a readier market for every, the most trivial, product of his
     farm, operates as a constant temptation to break up his rotation
     and diminish his stock.

     “In the above figures, carefully calculated from the data of
     authentic documents,[76] we find no cause for self-gratulation,
     but some food for meditation. They are not without use to those
     who would improve the future by the past. They show that we have
     not done our part in the bringing of land into cultivation; that,
     notwithstanding natural advantages which greatly exceed those
     of the two States drawn into parallel with Virginia, we are yet
     behind them both—that with forty and sixty per cent. respectively
     of their industry devoted to other pursuits, into which it has
     been lured by prospects of greater gain, they have done more than
     we have done. * * *

     “Whilst our population has increased for the last ten years,
     in a ratio of 11·66, that of New York has increased in a ratio
     of 27·52, and that of Massachusetts at the still heavier and
     more startling rate of 34·81. With a territorial area thirty
     per cent. larger than New York, we have but little more than
     one-third of her Congressional representation; and Massachusetts,
     only one-eighth our size, comes within two of our number of
     representatives, we being cut down to thirteen, while she rises
     to eleven. And thus we, who once swayed the councils of the
     Union, find our power gone, and our influence on the wane, at a
     time when both are of vital importance to our prosperity, if not
     to our safety. As other States accumulate the means of material
     greatness, and glide past us on the road to wealth and empire, we
     slight the warnings of dull statistics, and drive lazily along
     the field of ancient customs, or stop the _plough_, to speed the
     _politician_—should we not, in too many cases, say with more
     propriety, the _demagogue_?

     “State pride is a good thing; it is one mode in which patriotism
     is manifested. But it is not always a wise one. Certainly not,
     when it makes us content on small grounds. And when it smothers up
     improvement in self-satisfaction, it is a most pernicious thing.
     We have much to be proud of in Virginia. In intellect and fitness
     to command, in personal and social qualities, in high tone and
     noble bearing, in loyalty, in generosity, and magnanimity, and
     disinterestedness, above all, in moral purity, we once stood—let
     us hope, still stand—preeminent among our sister States. But the
     possession and practice of these virtues do not comprise our whole
     duty as men or as citizens. The great decree which has gone forth
     ordaining that we shall ‘increase, and multiply, and replenish
     the earth,’ enjoins upon us quite other duties, which cannot be
     neglected with impunity; so we have found out by experience—for
     we _have_ neglected these duties. And when we contemplate our
     field of labour, and the work we have done in it, we cannot but
     observe the sad contrast between capacity and achievement. With
     a wide-spread domain, with a kindly soil, with a climate whose
     sun radiates fertility, and whose very dews distil abundance, we
     find our inheritance so wasted that the eye aches to behold the
     prospect.”


2.

The Census of 1850 gives the following values to agricultural land in
the adjoining States of Virginia and Pennsylvania.

                                   In Virginia.    In Pennsylvania.
  No. of acres improved land in farms, 10,360,135       8,626,619
     ”      unimproved,                15,792,176       6,294,728
  Cash value of farms,               $216,401,543     $407,876,099
                                     —$8 an acre.     —$25 an acre.

Considering that, at the Revolution, Virginia had nearly twice the
population of Pennsylvania, was in possession of much more wealth
or disposable capital, and had much the best natural facilities for
external commerce and internal communication, if her political and
social constitution had been and had continued equally good, and her
people equally industrious and enterprising with those of Pennsylvania,
there is no reason why the value of her farms should not have been,
at this time, at least equal to those of Pennsylvania. Were it so, it
appears that Virginia, in that particular alone, would now be richer
than she is by four hundred and thirty millions of dollars.

If it should be thought that this difference between the value of land
in Virginia and Pennsylvania is in some degree due to more fertile
soils in the latter, a similar comparison may be made with the other
adjoining Free State, and old State of New Jersey, the climate of
which, owing to its vicinity to the ocean, differs imperceptibly from
that of Virginia, while its soil is decidedly less fertile, taking both
States on an average. The average value of farming-land in New Jersey
is recorded at $44.

Give this value to the Virginia farms, and the difference between it
and their present value would buy, at a large valuation, all the slaves
now in the State, send them to Africa, provide each family of them five
hundred dollars to start with when they reached there, and leave still
a surplus which, divided among the present white population of the
State, would give between two and three thousand dollars to each family.

Some Southern writers have lately objected to comparisons of density of
population, as indications of the prosperity of communities. Between
two adjoining communities, however, where there are no restrictions
upon the movements of the populations, and when the people are so ready
to move as both those of Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, and of Virginia
have shown themselves to be, the price of land must indicate with
considerable exactness the comparative value or desirableness of it,
all things considered, to live upon. The Virginians do not admit, and
have no occasion to do so, that Pennsylvania and New Jersey have any
advantage over Virginia, in soil, in climate, or in any natural quality.


3.

In intellectual productions, the same general comparative barrenness is
noticeable.

_From the Richmond Whig._

     “We receive nearly all our books from Northern or foreign
     authors—gotten up, printed by Northern or foreign publishers—while
     we have among us numberless men of ripe scholarship, profound
     acquirements, elegant and forcible writers—men willing to
     devote themselves to such labour, _only a Southern book is not
     patronized_. The North usually scowls at it, ridicules it, or
     damns it with faint praise; and the South takes on a like hue and
     complexion and neglects it. We have printers and publishers able,
     willing, and competent to publish, but, such is the _apathy_ on
     the part of Southern people, that it involves hazard to Southern
     publishers to put them out. Indeed, until recently, almost all
     the publications, even of Southern books, issued (and that was
     their only hope of success) from Northern houses. The last chance
     now of getting a Southern book sold, is to manage to secure the
     favourable notice of the Northern press, and then the South buys
     it. Our magazines and periodicals languish for support.”

Mr. Howison, “The Virginia Historian,” observes:

     “The question might be asked, Where is the literature of Virginia?
     and it would not be easily answered. It is a melancholy fact, that
     her people have never been a reading people. In the mass they
     have shown an indifference to polite literature and education
     in general, depressing to the mind that wishes to see them
     respectable and happy.”

“It is with pain,” says the same authority, “that we are compelled to
speak of the horrible cloud of ignorance that rests on Virginia,” and
he computes that (1848) there are in the State 166,000 youth, between
seven and sixteen years of age, and of these 126,000 attend no school
at all, and receive no education except what can be imparted by poor
and ignorant parents. Besides these, he reckons 449,087 slaves and
48,852 free negroes, with few exceptions, wholly uneducated.

     “The policy which discourages further extension of knowledge among
     them is necessary: but the fact remains unchanged, that they exist
     among us, _a huge mass of mind, almost entirely unenlightened_. We
     fear that the most favourable estimates will leave, in our State,
     683,000 rational beings who are destitute of the merest rudiments
     of knowledge.”



APPENDIX (B.)

THE SLAVE TRADE IN VIRGINIA.


_From Chambers’s Journal._

     “The exposure of ordinary goods in a store is not more open to the
     public than are the sales of slaves in Richmond. By consulting
     the local newspapers, I learned that the sales take place by
     auction every morning in the offices of certain brokers, who, as
     I understood by the terms of their advertisements, purchased or
     received slaves for sale on commission.

     “Where the street was in which the brokers conducted their
     business, I did not know; but the discovery was easily made.
     Rambling down the main street in the city, I found that the
     subject of my search was a narrow and short thoroughfare, turning
     off to the left, and terminating in a similar cross thoroughfare.
     Both streets, lined with brick houses, were dull and silent. There
     was not a person to whom I could put a question. Looking about, I
     observed the office of a commission agent, and into it I stepped.
     Conceive the idea of a large shop with two windows, and a door
     between; no shelving or counters inside; the interior a spacious,
     dismal apartment, not well swept; the only furniture a desk at one
     of the windows, and a bench at one side of the shop, three feet
     high, with two steps to it from the floor. I say, conceive the
     idea of this dismal-looking place, with nobody in it but three
     negro children, who, as I entered, were playing at auctioneering
     each other. An intensely black little negro, of four or five years
     of age, was standing on the bench, or block, as it is called, with
     an equally black girl, about a year younger, by his side, whom he
     was pretending to sell by bids to another black child, who was
     rolling about the floor.

     “My appearance did not interrupt the merriment. The little
     auctioneer continued his mimic play, and appeared to enjoy the
     joke of selling the girl, who stood demurely by his side.

     “‘Fifty dolla for de gal—fifty dolla—fifty dolla—I sell dis
     here fine gal for fifty dolla,’ was uttered with extraordinary
     volubility by the woolly-headed urchin, accompanied with
     appropriate gestures, in imitation, doubtless, of the scenes he
     had seen enacted daily on the spot. I spoke a few words to the
     little creatures, but was scarcely understood and the fun went on
     as if I had not been present: so I left them, happy in rehearsing
     what was likely soon to be their own fate.

     “At another office of a similar character, on the opposite side
     of the street, I was more successful. Here, on inquiry, I was
     respectfully informed, by a person in attendance, that the sale
     would take place the following morning at half-past nine o’clock.

     “Next day I set out accordingly, after breakfast, for the scene
     of operations, in which there was now a little more life. Two or
     three persons were lounging about, smoking cigars; and, looking
     along the street, I observed that three red flags were projected
     from the doors of those offices in which sales were to occur. On
     each flag was pinned a piece of paper, notifying the articles to
     be sold. The number of lots was not great. On the first was the
     following announcement:—‘Will be sold this morning, at half-past
     nine o’clock, a Man and a Boy.’

     “It was already the appointed hour; but as no company had
     assembled, I entered and took a seat by the fire. The office,
     provided with a few deal forms and chairs, a desk at one of the
     windows, and a block accessible by a few steps, was tenantless,
     save by a gentleman who was arranging papers at the desk, and to
     whom I had addressed myself on the previous evening. Minute after
     minute passed, and still nobody entered. There was clearly no
     hurry in going to business. I felt almost like an intruder, and
     had formed the resolution of departing, in order to look into the
     other offices, when the person referred to left his desk, and came
     and seated himself opposite to me at the fire.

     “‘You are an Englishman,’ said he, looking me steadily in the
     face; ‘do you want to purchase?’

     “‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘I am an Englishman; but I do not intend to
     purchase. I am travelling about for information, and I shall feel
     obliged by your letting me know the prices at which negro servants
     are sold.’

     “‘I will do so with much pleasure,’ was the answer; ‘do you mean
     field-hands or house-servants?’

     “‘All kinds,’ I replied; ‘I wish to get all the information I can.’

     “With much politeness, the gentleman stepped to his desk, and
     began to draw up a note of prices. This, however, seemed to
     require careful consideration; and while the note was preparing, a
     lanky person, in a wide-awake hat, and chewing tobacco, entered,
     and took the chair just vacated. He had scarcely seated himself,
     when, on looking towards the door, I observed the subjects of
     sale—the man and boy indicated by the paper on the red flag—enter
     together, and quietly walk to a form at the back of the shop,
     whence, as the day was chilly, they edged themselves towards the
     fire, in the corner where I was seated. I was now between the two
     parties—the white man on the right, and the old and young negro on
     the left—and I waited to see what would take place.

     “The sight of the negroes at once attracted the attention of
     Wide-awake. Chewing with vigour, he kept keenly eyeing the pair,
     as if to see what they were good for. Under this searching gaze,
     the man and boy were a little abashed, but said nothing. Their
     appearance had little of the repulsiveness we are apt to associate
     with the idea of slaves. They were dressed in a gray woollen coat,
     pants, and waistcoat, coloured cotton neckcloths, clean shirts,
     coarse woollen stockings, and stout shoes. The man wore a black
     hat; the boy was bareheaded. Moved by a sudden impulse, Wide-awake
     left his seat, and rounding the back of my chair, began to grasp
     at the man’s arms, as if to feel their muscular capacity. He then
     examined his hands and fingers; and, last of all, told him to open
     his mouth and show his teeth, which he did in a submissive manner.
     Having finished these examinations, Wide-awake resumed his seat,
     and chewed on in silence as before.

     “I thought it was but fair that I should now have my turn of
     investigation, and accordingly asked the elder negro what was his
     age. He said he did not know. I next inquired how old the boy was.
     He said he was seven years of age. On asking the man if the boy
     was his son, he said he was not—he was his cousin. I was going
     into other particulars, when the office-keeper approached, and
     handed me the note he had been preparing; at the same time making
     the observation that the market was dull at present, and that
     there never could be a more favourable opportunity of buying. I
     thanked him for the trouble which he had taken; and now submit a
     copy of his price-current:

     Best Men, 18 to 25 years old               1200 to 1300 dollars.
     Fair do. do. do.                            950 to 1050    ”
     Boys, 5 feet                                850 to  950    ”
     Do., 4 feet 8 inches                        700 to  800    ”
     Do., 4 feet 5 inches                        500 to  600    ”
     Do., 4 feet                                 375 to  450    ”
     Young Women                                 800 to 1000    ”
     Girls, 5 feet                               750 to  850    ”
     Do., 4 feet 9 inches                        700 to  750    ”
     Do., 4 feet                                 350 to  450    ”

     (Signed) _________________________

     Richmond, Virginia.

     “Leaving this document for future consideration, I pass on to a
     history of the day’s proceedings. It was now ten minutes to ten
     o’clock, and Wide-awake and I being alike tired of waiting, we
     went off in quest of sales further up the street. Passing the
     second office, in which also nobody was to be seen, we were more
     fortunate at the third. Here according to the announcement on the
     paper stuck to the flag, there were to be sold, ‘A woman and three
     children; a young woman, three men, a middle-aged woman, and a
     little boy.’ Already a crowd had met, composed, I should think,
     of persons mostly from the cotton-plantations of the South. A few
     were seated near a fire on the right-hand side, and others stood
     round an iron stove in the middle of the apartment. The whole
     place had a dilapidated appearance. From a back window, there
     was a view into a ruinous court-yard; beyond which, in a hollow,
     accessible by a side lane, stood a shabby brick house, on which
     the word _Jail_ was inscribed in large black letters on a white
     ground. I imagined it to be a depôt for the reception of negroes.

     “On my arrival, and while making these preliminary observations,
     the lots for sale had not made their appearance. In about five
     minutes afterwards, they were ushered in, one after the other,
     under the charge of a mulatto, who seemed to act as principal
     assistant. I saw no whips, chains, or any other engine of force.
     Nor did such appear to be required. All the lots took their
     seats on two long forms near the stove; none showed any signs of
     resistance; nor did any one utter a word. Their manner was that of
     perfect humility and resignation.

     “As soon as all were seated, there was a general examination of
     their respective merits, by feeling their arms, looking into
     their mouths, and investigating the quality of their hands and
     fingers—this last being evidently an important particular. Yet
     there was no abrupt rudeness in making these examinations—no
     coarse or domineering language was employed. The three negro men
     were dressed in the usual manner—in gray woollen clothing. The
     woman, with three children, excited my peculiar attention. She
     was neatly attired, with a coloured handkerchief bound around her
     head, and wore a white apron over her gown. Her children were all
     girls, one of them a baby at the breast three months old, and the
     others two and three years of age respectively, rigged out with
     clean white pinafores. There was not a tear or an emotion visible
     in the whole party. Everything seemed to be considered as a matter
     of course; and the change of owners was possibly looked forward to
     with as much indifference as ordinary hired servants anticipate a
     removal from one employer to another.

     “While intending purchasers were proceeding with personal
     examinations of the several lots, I took the liberty of putting a
     few questions to the mother of the children. The following was our
     conversation:—

     “‘Are you a married woman?’

     “‘Yes, sir.’

     “‘How many children have you had?’

     “‘Seven.’

     “‘Where is your husband?’

     “‘In Madison county.’

     “‘When did you part from him?’

     “‘On Wednesday—two days ago.’

     “‘Were you sorry to part from him?’

     “‘Yes, sir,’ she replied, with a deep sigh; ‘my heart was a’most
     broke.’

     “‘Why is your master selling you?’

     “‘I don’t know—he wants money to buy some land—suppose he sells me
     for that.’

     “There might not be a word of truth in these answers, for I had no
     means of testing their correctness; but the woman seemed to speak
     unreservedly, and I am inclined to think that she said nothing but
     what, if necessary, could be substantiated. I spoke, also, to the
     young woman who was seated near her. She, like the others, was
     perfectly black, and appeared stout and healthy, of which some of
     the persons present assured themselves by feeling her arms and
     ankles, looking into her mouth, and causing her to stand up. She
     told me she had several brothers and sisters, but did not know
     where they were. She said she was a house-servant, and would be
     glad to be bought by a good master—looking at me, as if I should
     not be unacceptable.

     “I have said that there was an entire absence of emotion in the
     looks of men, women, and children, thus seated preparatory to
     being sold. This does not correspond with the ordinary accounts of
     slave-sales, which are represented as tearful and harrowing. My
     belief is, that none of the parties felt deeply on the subject, or
     at least that any distress they experienced was but momentary—soon
     passed away, and was forgotten. One of my reasons for this opinion
     rests on a trifling incident which occurred. While waiting for
     the commencement of the sale, one of the gentlemen present amused
     himself with a pointer dog, which, at command, stood on its hind
     legs, and took pieces of bread from his pocket. These tricks
     greatly entertained the row of negroes, old and young; and the
     poor woman, whose heart three minutes before was almost broken,
     now laughed as heartily as any one.

     “‘Sale is going to commence—this way, gentlemen,’ cried a man
     at the door to a number of loungers outside; and all having
     assembled, the mulatto assistant led the woman and her children
     to the block, which he helped her to mount. There she stood, with
     her infant at the breast, and one of her girls at each side. The
     auctioneer, a handsome, gentlemanly personage, took his place,
     with one foot on an old deal chair with a broken back, and the
     other raised on the somewhat more elevated block. It was a
     striking scene.

     “‘Well, gentlemen,’ began the salesman, ‘here is a capital woman
     and her three children, all in good health—what do you say for
     them? Give me an offer. (Nobody speaks.) I put up the whole lot
     at 850 dollars—850 dollars—850 dollars (speaking very fast)—850
     dollars. Will no one advance upon that? A very extraordinary
     bargain, gentlemen. A fine, healthy baby. Hold it up. (Mulatto
     goes up the first step of the block; takes the baby from the
     woman’s breast, and holds it aloft with one hand, so as to show
     that it was a veritable sucking baby.) That will do. A woman,
     still young, and three children, all for 850 dollars. An advance,
     if you please, gentlemen. (A voice bids 860.) Thank you, sir,
     860; any one bids more? (A second voice says, 870; and so on the
     bidding goes as far as 890 dollars, when it stops.) That won’t
     do, gentlemen. I cannot take such a low price. (After a pause,
     addressing the mulatto): She may go down.’ Down from the block the
     woman and her children were therefore conducted by the assistant,
     and, as if nothing had occurred, they calmly resumed their seats
     by the stove.

     “The next lot brought forward was one of the men. The assistant
     beckoning to him with his hand, requested him to come behind a
     canvas screen, of two leaves, which was standing near the back
     window. The man placidly rose, and having been placed behind the
     screen, was ordered to take off his clothes, which he did without
     a word or look of remonstrance. About a dozen gentlemen crowded to
     the spot while the poor fellow was stripping himself, and as soon
     as he stood on the floor, bare from top to toe, a most rigorous
     scrutiny of his person was instituted. The clear black skin, back
     and front, was viewed all over for sores from disease; and there
     was no part of his body left unexamined. The man was told to open
     and shut his hands, asked if he could pick cotton, and every tooth
     in his head was scrupulously looked at. The investigation being at
     an end, he was ordered to dress himself; and having done so, was
     requested to walk to the block.

     The ceremony of offering him for competition was gone through as
     before, but no one would bid. The other two men, after undergoing
     similar examinations behind the screen, were also put up, but with
     the same result. Nobody would bid for them, and they were all sent
     back to their seats. It seemed as if the company had conspired not
     to buy anything that day. Probably some imperfections had been
     detected in the personal qualities of the negroes. Be this as it
     may, the auctioneer, perhaps a little out of temper from his want
     of success, walked off to his desk, and the affair was so far at
     an end.

     “‘This way, gentlemen—this way!’ was heard from a voice outside,
     and the company immediately hived off to the second establishment.
     At this office there was a young woman, and also a man, for sale.
     The woman was put up first at 500 dollars; and possessing some
     recommendable qualities, the bidding for her was run as high as
     710 dollars, at which she was knocked down to a purchaser. The
     man, after the customary examination behind the screen, was put up
     at 700 dollars; but a small imperfection having been observed in
     his person, no one would bid for him; and he was ordered down.

     “‘This way, gentlemen, this way—down the street, if you please!’
     was now shouted by a person in the employment of the first firm,
     to whose office all very willingly adjourned—one migratory
     company, it will be perceived, serving all the slave-auctions in
     the place. In going in the crowd, I went to see what should be
     the fate of the man and boy, with whom I had already had some
     communication.

     “There the pair, the two cousins, sat by the fire, just where I
     had left them an hour ago. The boy was put up first.

     “‘Come along, my man—jump up; there’s a good boy!’ said one of
     the partners, a bulky and respectable looking person, with a gold
     chain and bunch of seals; at the same time getting on the block.
     With alacrity the little fellow came forward, and, mounting the
     steps, stood by his side. The forms in front were filled by the
     company; and as I seated myself, I found that my old companion,
     Wide-awake, was close at hand, still chewing and spitting at a
     great rate.

     “‘Now, gentlemen,’ said the auctioneer, putting his hand on the
     shoulder of the boy, ‘here is a very fine boy, seven years of
     age, warranted sound—what do you say for him? I put him up at 500
     dollars—500 dollars (speaking quick, his right hand raised up, and
     coming down on the open palm of his left)—500 dollars. Any one
     say more than 500 dollars? (560 is bid.) 560 dollars. Nonsense!
     Just look at him. See how high he is. (He draws the lot in front
     of him, and shows that the little fellow’s head comes up to his
     breast.) You see he is a fine, tall, healthy boy. Look at his
     hands.’

     “Several step forward, and cause the boy to open and shut his
     hands—the flexibility of the small fingers, black on the one side,
     and whitish on the other, being well looked to. The hands, and
     also the mouth, having given satisfaction, an advance is made to
     570, then to 580 dollars.

     “‘Gentlemen, that is a very poor price for a boy of this size.
     (Addressing the lot)—Go down, my boy, and show them how you can
     run.’

     “The boy, seemingly happy to do as he was bid, went down from the
     block, and ran smartly across the floor several times; the eyes of
     every one in the room following him.

     “‘Now that will do. Get up again. (Boy mounts the block, the steps
     being rather deep for his short legs; but the auctioneer kindly
     lends him a hand.) Come, gentlemen, you see this is a first-rate
     lot. (590—600—610—620—630 dollars are bid.) I will sell him for
     630 dollars. (Right hand coming down on left.) Last call. 630
     dollars, once—630 dollars, twice. (A pause; hand sinks.) Gone!’

     “The boy having descended, the man was desired to come forward;
     and after the usual scrutiny behind a screen, he took his place on
     the block.

     “‘Well, now, gentlemen,’ said the auctioneer, ‘here is a right
     prime lot. Look at this man; strong, healthy, able-bodied; could
     not be a better hand for field-work. He can drive a waggon or
     anything. What do you say for him? I offer the man at the low
     price of 800 dollars—he is well worth 1200 dollars. Come, make
     an advance, if you please. 800 dollars said for the man (a
     bid); thank you; 810 dollars—810 dollars—810 dollars (several
     bids)—820—830—850—860—going at 860—going. Gentlemen, this is far
     below his value. A strong-boned man, fit for any kind of heavy
     work. Just take a look at him. (Addressing the lot): Walk down.
     (Lot dismounts, and walks from one side of the shop to the other.
     When about to reascend the block, a gentleman, who is smoking
     a cigar, examines his mouth with his fingers. Lot resumes his
     place.) Pray, gentlemen, be quick (continues the auctioneer);
     I must sell him, and 860 dollars are only bid for the man—860
     dollars. (A fresh run of bids to 945 dollars.) 945 dollars,
     once—945 dollars, twice (looking slowly round, to see if all were
     done), 945 dollars. Going—going—(hand drops)—gone!’

     “Such were a forenoon’s experiences in the slave-market of
     Richmond. Everything is described precisely as it occurred,
     without passion or prejudice. It would not have been difficult
     to be sentimental on a subject which appeals so strongly to the
     feelings, but I have preferred telling the simple truth. In a
     subsequent chapter I shall endeavour to offer some general views
     of slavery in its social and political relations.”



APPENDIX (C.)

COST OF LABOUR IN THE BORDER STATES.


From a native Virginian, who has resided in New York:

     “_To the Editor of the N. Y. Daily Times._

     “SIR—You will not object, I think, to receive an endorsement
     from a Southern man, of the statements contained in number seven
     of ‘Letters on the Productions, Industry, and Resources of the
     Southern States’ [by Mr. Olmsted], published in your issue on
     Thursday last * * *

     “Where you would see one white labourer on a Northern farm,
     scores of blacks should appear on the Virginian plantation, _the
     best of them only performing each day one-fourth a white man’s
     daily task, and all requiring an incessant watch to get even this
     small modicum of labour_. Yet they eat as much again as a white
     man, must have their two suits of clothes and shoes yearly, and
     although the heartiest, healthiest looking men and women anywhere
     on earth, actually lose for their owners or employers one-sixth
     their time on account of real or pretended sickness. Be assured,
     our model Virginia farmer has his hands full, and is not to be
     envied as a jolly fox-hunting idler, lording it over ‘ranks of
     slaves in chains.’ No, sir; he must be up by ‘the dawn’s early
     light,’ and head the column, direct in person the commencing
     operations, urging, and coaxing; must praise and punish—but too
     glad to reward the meritorious, granting liberty (_i. e._ leave of
     absence) often to his own servant, that he dare not take himself,
     because he must not leave home for fear something will go wrong
     ere his return. Hence but too many give up, to overseers or other
     irresponsible persons, the care and management of their estates,
     rather than undergo such constant annoyance and confinement.
     Poor culture, scanty crops, and worn-out land, is the inevitable
     result; and yet, harassed and trammeled as they are, no one but a
     Southerner regards them with the slightest degree of compassion
     or even forbearance; and our good friends, the Abolitionists,
     would have ‘all the rest of mankind’ rank them with pirates
     and cut-throats. But my object in this communication is not to
     sympathize with nor ask sympathy on behalf of slaveholders. For,
     however sinning or sinned against, they seem quite able to take
     their own part, if molested; and are remarkably indifferent,
     withal, as to the opinions expressed by ignorant ranters
     concerning them.

     “If I have the ability, my desire is to draw a parallel between
     the state and condition of Northern and Southern farmers and
     farming. The Northern farmer does undoubtedly experience a full
     share of those troubles and cares attendant even upon the most
     easy and favourable system of farming; but, sir, can he have any
     such responsibility as that resting upon the owner of from 50 to
     300 ignorant, lazy negroes?

       *       *       *       *       *

     “You must plough deep, follow up quickly, and sow with powerful
     fertilizers, attend closely to the growing crop, gather in rapidly
     before blight or mildew can come and destroy, says our Northern
     farmer. On a farm of three hundred acres, thus managed with five
     hands, two extra during harvest, I can raise thirty bushels of
     wheat to the acre. Now picture the condition of him South, and
     hear his answer. With from three to fifteen hundred acres of land,
     and a host of negroes great and small, his cares and troubles are
     without end. ‘The hands,’ able men and women, to say nothing of
     children, and old ones laid by from age or other infirmity, have
     wants innumerable. Some are sick, others pretend to be so, many
     obstinate, indolent, or fractious—each class requires different
     treatment; so that without mentioning the actual daily wants,
     as provisions, clothing, etc., etc., the poor man’s time, and
     thoughts—indeed, every faculty of mind—must be exercised on behalf
     of those who have no minds of their own.

     “His answer, then, to the Northern farmer is: ‘I have not one hand
     on my place capable and willing to do the work you name.’ They
     tell me that ‘five of them could not perform the task required
     of one.’ They have never been used to do it, and no amount of
     force or persuasion will induce them to try. Their task is so
     much per day; all over that I agree to pay them for, at the same
     rate I allow free labourers—but ’tis seldom they make extra time,
     except to get money enough to buy tobacco, rum, or sometimes fine
     clothes. Can it be wondered at that systematic farming, such as
     we see North and East, is unknown or not practised to any great
     degree South? The two systems will not harmonize.

       “R. J. W.”

From a native New Yorker, who has resided in Virginia:

     “_To the Editor of the New York Daily Times._

     “I have read with deep interest the series of letters from
     the South, published in your columns. Circumstances have made
     me quite familiar with the field of your correspondent’s
     investigation, much more familiar than he is at present, and
     yet I am happy to say, that his letters are more satisfactory
     than any I have ever seen relating to the South. It is now
     about ten years since, going from this State, I first became
     familiar with those facts in regard to the results of slave
     labour, etc., that your correspondent and his readers are
     so much surprised at. I have talked those subjects over
     as he is doing, with the planters along the shores of the
     Chesapeake, and on both sides of the James River, through
     the Tidewater, the middle and the mountainous districts east
     of the Blue Ridge, and in many of those rich counties in the
     Valley of Virginia. I may add that, subsequently, spending my
     winters at the South for my health, I have become well nigh
     as familiar with the States of North and South Carolina, and
     Georgia, as I am with Virginia. I have, therefore, almost of
     necessity, given not a little thought to the questions your
     correspondent is discussing.

     “His statement, in regard to the comparative value of slave
     and free-labour, will surprise those who have given little or
     no attention to the subject. I wish to confirm his statements
     on this subject. In Eastern Virginia I have repeatedly been
     told that the task of one cord of wood a day, or five cords a
     week, rain or shine, is the general task, and one of the most
     profitable day’s work that the slave does for his master. And
     this, it should be remembered, is generally pine wood, cut
     from trees as straight and beautiful as ever grew. The reason
     of this ‘profitableness’ is the fact that the labour requires
     so little mental effort. The grand secret of the difference
     between free and slave labour is, that the latter is without
     intelligence, and without motive. If the former, in Western
     New York, has a piece of work to perform, the first thought
     is, how it can be done with the least labour, and the most
     expeditiously. He thinks, he plans, before he commences, and
     while about his labour. His mind labours as much as his body,
     and this mental labour saves a vast deal of physical labour.
     Besides this, he is urged on by the strongest motives. He
     enjoys the products of his labour. The more intelligent
     and earnest his labours, the richer are his rewards. Slave
     labour is exactly the opposite of this. It is unintelligent
     labour—labour without thought—without plan—without motive. It
     is little more than brute force. To one who has not witnessed
     it, it is utterly inconceivable how little labour a slave,
     or a company of slaves, will accomplish in a given time.
     Their awkwardness, their slowness, the utter absence of all
     skill and ingenuity in accomplishing the work before them,
     are absolutely painful to one who has been accustomed to
     seeing work done with any sort of spirit and life. Often they
     spend hours in doing what, with a little thought, might be
     despatched in a few moments, or perhaps avoided altogether.
     This is a necessary result of employing labour which is
     without intelligence and without motive. I have often thought
     of a remark made to me by a planter, in New Kent County,
     Virginia. We were riding past a field where some of his
     hands were making a sort of wicker-work fence, peculiar to
     Eastern Virginia. ‘There,’ said he, in a decidedly fretted
     tone, ‘those “boys” have been —— days in making that piece
     of fence.’ I expressed my astonishment that they could have
     spent so much time, and yet have accomplished so very little.
     He assured me it was so—and after a slight pause, the tones
     of his voice entirely changed, said: ‘Well, I believe they
     have done as well as I would in their circumstances!’ And
     so it is. The slave is without motive, without inducement
     to exertion. His food, his clothing, and all his wants are
     supplied as they are, without care on his part, and when
     these are supplied he has nothing more to hope for. He can
     make no provision for old age, he can lay up nothing for
     his children, he has no voice at all in the disposal of the
     results of his earnings. What cares he whether his labour is
     productive or unproductive. His principal care seems to be to
     accomplish just as little as possible. I have said that the
     slaves were without ingenuity—I must qualify that remark. I
     have been amused and astonished at their exceeding ingenuity
     in avoiding and slighting the work that was required of them.
     It has often seemed to me that their principal mental efforts
     were in this direction, and I think your correspondent will
     find universal testimony that they have decided talent in
     this line.

    “H. W. P.”


In a volume entitled “Notes on Uncle Tom’s Cabin; being a
Logical Answer to its Allegations and Inferences against Slavery
as an Institution,” by the Rev. E. J. Stearns, of Maryland (much
the most thorough review of that work made from the Southern
stand-point), the author, who is a New-Englander by birth,
shows, by an elaborate calculation, that in Maryland, the cost
of a negro, at twenty-one years of age, has been, to the man
who raised him, eight hundred dollars. Six _per cent._ interest
on this cost, with one and three-quarters per cent. for life
insurance, per annum, makes the lowest wages of a negro, under
the most favourable circumstances, sixty-two dollars a year (or
five dollars a month), _paid in advance_, in the shape of food
and clothing. The author, whose object is to prove that the
slaveholder is not guilty, as Mrs. Stowe intimates, of _stealing_
the negroes’ labour, proceeds, as follows, to show that he pays a
great deal more for it than Mrs. Stowe’s neighbours in New England
do, for the labour they hire:—

     “If now we add to this (what every New-Englander who has
     lived at the South _knows_), that Quashy does not do more
     than one-third, or, at the very utmost, one-half as much
     work as an able-bodied labourer on a farm at the North; and
     that, for this he receives, besides the five dollars above
     mentioned, his food, clothing, and shelter, with medical
     attendance and nursing when sick, and no deduction for lost
     time, even though he should be sick for years, while the
     ‘farm-hand’ at the North gets only ten or twelve dollars, and
     has to clothe himself out of it, and pay his own doctor’s
     and nurse’s bill in sickness, to say nothing of lost time,
     I think we shall come to the conclusion if there has been
     stealing anywhere, it has not been from Quashy.”—P. 25.

     “I recollect, the first time I saw Quashy at work in the
     field, I was struck by the lazy, listless manner in which he
     raised his hoe. It reminded me of the working-beam of the
     engine on the steam-boat that I had just landed from—fifteen
     strokes a minute; but there was this difference: that,
     whereas the working-beam kept steadily at it, Quashy, on the
     contrary, would stop about every five strokes and lean upon
     his hoe, and look around, apparently congratulating himself
     upon the amount of work he had accomplished.

     “Mrs. Stowe may well call Quashy ‘shiftless.’ One of my
     father’s hired men—who was with him seven years—did more
     work in that time than an average negro would do in his
     whole life. Nay, I myself have done more work in a day,—and
     followed it up, too—than I ever saw a negro do, and I was
     considered remarkably lazy with the plough or hoe.”—P. 142.



APPENDIX (D.)

STATISTICS OF THE GEORGIA SEABOARD.


The notes here following are derived from a volume entitled
“White’s Statistics of Georgia,” a large octavo of seven hundred
pages, compiled and published in the State. A special section
of the book is devoted to the condition of the trade of each
county, while a comparison is also attempted to be given, from the
personal observation of the compiler, of the comparative social,
moral, and religious properties of the people. Thus, so far as the
plan has been thoroughly executed, an estimate is presented, not
only of the ordinary commercial demand of the citizens, but, so to
speak, of the state of their intellectual and moral market.

The counties referred to by Mr. Gregg are in the second tier
from the sea in South Carolina. I shall give statistics from Mr.
White, and other authorities named in the note,[77] with regard
to all the second tier counties of Georgia. What of good soil
to be brought into cultivation, without a heavy expenditure at
starting, there was originally in these counties begun to be first
occupied by whites about 1740. It was not till nearly twenty years
after this that slavery obtained the slightest footing in them,
and it was not till about thirty years ago that they had begun to
seriously deteriorate in production. There is yet some rich land
upon the alluvial bottoms of the numerous rivers, which, rising
above, pass through these counties toward the ocean; and here many
wealthy planters still remain, owning a large number of slaves,
and there has been recently a considerable increase of production
of some parts owing to the employment of capital in draining
marshes, the riches of which have previously been considered
impregnable.[78] In general, however, this whole range of country
is now quite barren, and most of the land at present cultivated
will not probably yield one third as large a crop for the same
expenditure of labour as would fair Mississippi cotton land.
The slaves formerly owned here have therefore been very largely
transferred westward, and the land they have worn out is left for
the non-slaveholding whites to make the best of.

As an instructive contrast, I place in an adjoining column with
the statistics of these counties those of the counties which
bound each of them on the east. In these there is a much larger
proportion of rich alluvial soil, and they contain the famous
“sea island” cotton plantations, as well as the Georgian rice
plantations. The valuable soil is still entirely possessed, as
will be evident, by large planters and slave owners, the usual
monopolizing effect of slavery being in this instance increased by
the peculiar local insalubrity of the coast.


     SECOND TIER COUNTIES.

     _Bullock County._—(The Central Railroad, the best conducted
     road in all the South, passes either through this county or
     close beside its northern boundary, for a distance of fifty
     miles. It is watered by the Ogeechee and Connauchee and a
     number of smaller rivers. On the larger rivers there is yet a
     considerable amount of productive land.)

     COAST COUNTIES.

     _Bryan County_, adjoining Bullock county, on the coast.


     SECOND TIER COUNTIES.

     _Population._—Whites, 2,000; slaves, 1,000. Average amount
     of property to each white family, $1,570. State tax for each
     white family, $2.95.

     Mr. White omits his usual statistics of trade. Both in this
     and the adjoining coast county of Bryan, the poor people, as
     well as the planters, are in the habit of dealing directly
     with Savannah, as described in “Seaboard Slave States,” p.
     414, and there are probably no established tradesmen in
     either.

     COAST COUNTIES.

     _Population._—Whites, 1,000; slaves, 2,400. Average amount of
     property to each white family, $5,302 (fourfold what it is in
     Bullock county). State tax to each white family, $7.

     No statistics of trade, again.


     SECOND TIER COUNTIES.

     _Soil._The _soil_ is described by Mr. White as generally poor,
     with some productive “hummock” and river tracts.

     COAST COUNTIES.

     _Soil._—“The soil, under the present system of culture,
     cannot, without rest and manure, be made to produce more
     than one half as much as when new.” This appears to refer
     particularly to the rice plantations.


     SECOND TIER COUNTIES.

     _Education._—“No newspapers are taken, and few books
     read. The school fund was once sufficient to educate many
     poor children, but owing to bad management it has become
     exhausted.” Thus says Mr. White. The census returns show,
     however, a public school expenditure of $150 per annum, and a
     private expenditure of $3,000, divided among fifteen schools,
     which is one for eighty square miles. This is so much better
     than usual, that, with Mr. White’s remarks, I am inclined to
     think it an error.

     COAST COUNTIES.

      _Education._—There is no academy, and there are no schools,
     except those supported by the “Poor School Fund” (a State
     provision for the children of indigent parents). “The children of
     the wealthy are either educated by private teachers or sent to
     school in the more favoured portions of the country; [the vicinity
     of Savannah, where there is a celebrated and well endowed academy,
     and of Liberty, where there are others, accounts for this;] the
     population is too sparse to furnish pupils enough to sustain a
     regular school” (large tracts of land being held by the planters,
     though wholly unproductive, to prevent the settlement of poor
     whites near their negroes, as one in this county informed me).
     According to the census returns, there were eight schools (one to
     twenty-five square miles) of all kinds, with an average of twelve
     pupils each. Total expenditure for each school, $38 per annum.


     SECOND TIER COUNTIES.

     _Character of the people._—“By industry and economy, they
     manage to supply their wants, which, however, are few.
     Many rely a great deal on game. * * * As far as temperance
     is concerned, they are behind the times. Whiskey has its
     votaries. Those who have attempted to show the citizens the
     folly and ill consequences of intemperance have been insulted
     and threatened. Even ministers of our holy religion have
     publicly denounced the motives and efforts of those who have
     attempted to form temperance societies.”

     COAST COUNTIES.

     _Character of the people._—No remarks.


     SECOND TIER COUNTIES.

     _Religion._—“The most numerous [sects] are the
     Anti-Missionary [hard shell?] Baptists.” Ten church edifices;
     average value, $145. No Sunday school or other public
     libraries.

     COAST COUNTIES.

     _Religion._—The county contains eleven church edifices;
     average value, $500. No Sunday school or other public
     libraries.


     SECOND TIER COUNTIES.

     _Tatnall County._

     _Population._—Whites, 2,000; slaves, 600. Average amount of
     property to each white family, $901.

     Capital invested in trade, 4,200.

     COAST COUNTIES.

     _Liberty County._

     _Population._—Whites, 2,000; slaves, 6,000. Average amount of
     property to each white family, $6,330.

     State tax to each white family, $10.

     Capital invested in trade, $3,850.


     SECOND TIER COUNTIES.

     _Soil._—“Light and sandy, except on the streams, which is
     stiff.”

     COAST COUNTIES.

     _Soil._—“The practice has been to wear out the virgin soils,
     and clear new lands. * * * Much waste land.”


     SECOND TIER COUNTIES.

     _Education._—“Education is neglected.” Eight public schools
     (1 to 148 square miles), with sixteen pupils each. Annual
     cost of maintenance of each school, $150. No other schools;
     no Sunday school or other libraries.

     COAST COUNTIES.

     _Education._—“Excellent schools are found. * * * And it is
     believed that a greater number of young men from Liberty
     county graduate from our _colleges_ than from any other
     section of Georgia.” There are five “academies,” with an
     average of nineteen pupils each. Five public schools (1 to
     160 square miles), maintained at an average expenditure of
     $15.40 per annum each. No libraries found in the census
     canvass of 1849. Mr. White states that the Medway and
     Newport Library Society had, in 1845, “about seven hundred
     volumes, in a very bad state of preservation.” This library
     was established by some New England immigrants before the
     prohibition of slavery was annulled in the province. The
     early settlers of the county were chiefly from Massachusetts.


     SECOND TIER COUNTIES.

     _Character of the people._—“Sober, industrious and
     hospitable” (phrases applied to every county not specially
     noted as conspicuous for some vice or virtue of its
     inhabitants.)

     COAST COUNTIES.

     _Character of the people._—“Generally upright and virtuous,
     and they are unsurpassed for the great attention paid to the
     duties of religion.”


     SECOND TIER COUNTIES.

     _Religion._—Sixteen church edifices, valued at 938 each.
     According to Mr. White, however, there are “about thirty
     churches” in the county.

     COAST COUNTIES.

     _Religion._—Ten church edifices; average value, $1,200.


     SECOND TIER COUNTIES.

     _Wayne County._

     _Population._—Whites, 930; slaves, 350. Average amount of
     property for each white family, $898.

     State tax, $1.23.

     Capital invested in trade, $4,200.

     COAST COUNTIES.

     _McIntosh County_, broadest on the sea.

     _Population._—Whites, 1,300; slaves, 4,400. Average amount of
     property for each white family, $7,287, or eight times as much
     as in Wayne.

     State tax, $2.77.

     Capital invested in trade, $1,200.


     SECOND TIER COUNTIES.

     _Soil._—“Generally poor, barren pine land; when manured, will
     produce about twenty bushels of corn per acre.”

     COAST COUNTIES.

     _Soil._—Poor turpentine pine land in the rear; on the
     Altamaha, “of inexhaustible fertility.”


     SECOND TIER COUNTIES.

     _Education._—“Few schools;” two academies (one Baptist, and
     the other Methodist, probably), with thirteen pupils between
     them. Four public schools (1 to 148 square miles), averaging
     ten pupils each; expense of maintenance not returned.

     COAST COUNTIES.

     _Education._—One academy, with thirty-eight scholars; four
     public schools, twelve and a half miles apart, averaging
     twenty pupils each. Expense of maintaining each school,
     $78 per annum. “The wealthier classes are highly educated;
     but, generally, little interest is felt in the subject of
     education.”


     SECOND TIER COUNTIES.

     _Character of the people._—“High for morality and
     hospitality;” “poor, but honest.” At the seat of justice
     “are many beautiful pine hills, affording delightful summer
     residences to the wealthy planters of Glynn” (hence the
     academical advantages).

     COAST COUNTIES.

     _Character of the people._—“Like all parts of Lower Georgia,
     the citizens of McIntosh are generally intelligent and
     hospitable.”


     SECOND TIER COUNTIES.

     _Religion._—Eight church edifices; average value, $240.

     COAST COUNTIES.
     _Religion._—Twelve church edifices; average value, $1,041.


     SECOND TIER COUNTIES.

     _Ware County._—(About one fifth of this county is occupied by
     the Okefenokee Swamp.)

     _Population._—Whites, 2,000; slaves, 300. Average amount of
     personal property for each white family, $480.

     State tax, $4.05.

     Stock in trade, $2,200.

     COAST COUNTIES.

     _Camden County._—Much the largest part of this county, which
     is L shaped, with but one arm on the sea, is inland, and
     unfertile.

     _Population._—Whites, 3,000; slaves, 4,000. Average amount
     of personal property for each white family, $4,428.

     State tax, $13.

     “Amount of business done at St. Mary’s is about $30,000 per
     annum,” nearly all in lumber, and done by New Englanders. No
     other trade statistics.


     SECOND TIER COUNTIES.

     _Soil._—“Light and tolerably productive.”

     COAST COUNTIES.

     _Soil._—“Of celebrated fertility.”


     SECOND TIER COUNTIES.

     _Education._—“Very little interest is taken in the subject of
     education.” No academies; six public schools (1 to 485 square
     miles), sixteen pupils each. Wages of teachers, etc., yearly,
     $41 each school. No Sunday school or other libraries.

     COAST COUNTIES.

     _Education._—No remarks on education or character by Mr.
     White. Four public schools (1 to 280 square miles), with
     seventeen pupils each, maintained at an average expenditure
     of $290 per annum. Two academies, with forty-five pupils.
     Five Sunday school libraries, with one hundred and ten
     volumes each.


     SECOND TIER COUNTIES.

     _Character of the people._—“The citizens are said to be
     hardy, industrious, and honest.” “Much good might be done by
     the organization of temperance societies.”

     COAST COUNTIES.

     _Character of the people._—No remarks.


     SECOND TIER COUNTIES.

     _Religion._—Fifteen church edifices, fourteen miles apart,
     each accommodating one hundred sitters, and valued at $56
     each.

     COAST COUNTIES.

     _Religion._—Ten churches (five of which are in the town of
     St. Mary’s, a beautiful and healthy village, resorted to by
     consumptives); average value, $850.

I have purposely omitted Effingham county in the above arrangement,
because the adjoining coast county of Chatham contains the city of
Savannah, an aggregate agency of northern and foreign merchants,
through which is effected the commercial exchanges of a great extent
of back country, the population of which can therefore afford no
indication as to the point under consideration. Effingham, the county
above Chatham, and one of the second tier, is worthy of notice, from
some other important exceptional features of its constitution. Owing
to the amount of rich soil in the county, along the Savannah river,
there is a larger proportion of slaves to the whole population than is
usual in the second tier, their number being sixteen hundred against
only eighteen hundred whites; the non-slaveholders, however, appear to
possess unusual privileges. There is an academy, with fifty pupils,
which Mr. White describes as “a fine school.” The public schools, eight
in number, are less than eight miles apart, with an average attendance
of sixteen pupils. Each school costs one hundred and twelve dollars a
year. There are twenty-one churches, less than five miles apart, and
valued at over twelve hundred dollars a-piece. Mr. White says that
honesty and industry are leading characteristics of the people, who,
notwithstanding the poverty of the soil, are generally in comfortable
circumstances.

The reason of this is partially the close vicinity of Savannah,
affording a cash market for a variety of productions and household
manufactures, among which, as distinguishing the county from any
other in the State, are mentioned fruits, silk, fishing lines,
and cow-bells, “the latter,” Mr. White is told, “superior to any
manufactured in the North or in Europe.” But an equally important
reason for the better character and condition of the people is to
be found in the fact that a majority of them[79] are descendants
and heirs of the land of those very early settlers who most
strenuously and to the last resisted the introduction of slaves
into the colony, being convinced that, if permitted, it would, as
they said in their memorials, “prove a scourge” to the poor people
who were persuaded to petition for it.[80] It is most gratifying
to perceive that all traces of the habits of industry, honesty,
and manly self-reliance, in which they thus educated their
children, are not wholly lost in the lapse of a century.



INDEX.


_Abolition_, effect of low prices of cotton in promoting, i., 201;
extent of the agitation to remote districts, ii., 37; abolitionist
sentiments of a slaveowner in Mississippi, 98; feeling in favour of, in
North Carolina, 131.

_Abolitionists_, danger of poor whites becoming, ii., 357; literature
of, 358.

_Advantage_ (supposed) of slave-labour in cultivating cotton and
tobacco, ii., 252.

_Advertisements_ for runaway negroes, i., 157; of slaves for sale, ii.,
22.

_Acadians_, or poor French _habitans_ in Louisiana, i., 338; ii., 33.

_Adams, Governor_, on the want of education for the poor, ii., 293.

_African races_, character of, compared with the Teutonic, ii., 221.

_Agriculture_, scientific, on a farm on James River, i., 52; wretched
implements used in North Carolina, 172; successful cultivation of the
sugar-cane, 322; on a Mississippi plantation, ii., 201; decay of, in
Virginia, 303; in Slave and Free States, 367.

_Alabama_, appearance of the country, i., 274; “reasons” for making
Montgomery the capital, ii., 112; women getting out iron ore, 115;
picture of decay by one of her statesmen, 297.

_Alabama River_, voyage down the, i., 275; number of so-called
landings, 275; mode of loading cotton, 275; Irishmen cheaper than
niggers, 276.

_Albemarle_, proportion of slaves to whites, i., 116.

_Alexandria_ (Louisiana), yellow fever at, i., 357; unenviable
reputation of, 357.

_Alligators_, ii., 24; dangers of their holes, 29.

_Amalgamation_, i., 307.

_Americans_ in Texas, ii., 101.

‘_American Agriculturist_,’ quoted, i., 116.

_Annexation_ of Cuba, its effect on the sugar manufacture of Louisiana,
ii., 50; on the African slave-trade, 51.

_Apparatus_ used in sugar manufacture, i., 329.

_Aptness_ of negroes for learning, ii., 70; for mechanical occupations,
78.

_Association_ of whites with coloured people, i., 168, 169, _note_; the
quadroon society of New Orleans, 305.

_Aristocrats_, “swell heads,” of Mississippi, ii., 156, 166.

_Auction_, sale of slaves by, at Richmond, i., 50; ii., 372.

_Aversion_ to labour, difficulty in overcoming the negro’s, ii., 192.


_Bacon_ raising, ii., 176.

_Bals masqués_ at New Orleans, i., 304.

_Barton, Dr._, on the advantages of slavery, ii., 277, _note_.

_Bee-hunting_, ii., 117.

_Big woods_, ii., 29.

_Bill of fare_ of an hotel at Memphis, ii., 57.

_Blacksmith_, an independent, ii., 8.

_Boarding-house_ at Washington, i., 28.

_Boat-songs_ of the negroes on the steamboats, i., 347.

_Books_, dangerous, ii., 358.

_Brazos_ bottoms, cotton plantations on the, i., 14.

_Breeding_ slaves for sale in Virginia, i., 57; early period at which
they have children, ii., 80.

_Brooks, P. S._, ii., 348.

_Burning alive_ of a negro in Eastern Tennessee, ii., 349, 351;
frequency of such cases, 354.


_Calcasieu River_ (Texas), ii., 30.

_Canada_, running of slaves into, ii., 362; loss to the South by, 362.

_Cape Fear River_, a type of the navigable streams of the cotton
States, i., 191; passage from Fayetteville to Wilmington, 191; panic
of a steamer’s crew, 192; taking in wood, 193; description of the
passengers, 194; features of the river-banks, 196.

_Capital_ transferred, ii., 299; with Northern men, 301.

_Carolina, North_, fisheries, i., 149; desolate aspect of the country,
171; want of means of communication, 181; degraded condition of white
labourers, 188; general ignorance and torpidity of the people, 190;
their causes, 190; aspect of slavery more favourable than in Virginia,
191; cultivation of forage crops neglected, 200; wages of labourers,
ii., 132.

_Carolina, South_, appearance of the country, i., 204, 215; thinly
peopled, 206; log cabins, 206; negro-quarters, 207; repulsive
appearance of field-hands, 208; conversation with an elderly countryman
in, 217; his ignorance and good-nature, 218, 221; conduct of two
negro-girls, 222; plantations, 233; negro settlements, 233, 237.

_Cartwright, Dr._, on the peculiar diseases of negroes, i., 122.

_Carts_, primitive style of, in Georgia, i., 231.

_Cavaliers_, English, Virginia partly colonized by, ii., 335.

_Cemeteries_, negro, i., 224.

‘_Chambers’ Journal_,’ on the Virginia slave-trade, ii., 372.

_Character_, difference of, in North and South, how accounted for, ii.,
332, _et seq._

‘_Charleston Mercury_,’ quoted, ii., 362.

‘_Charleston Standard_,’ the, on dishonest trading with slaves, i., 253.

_Charleston_ (S. C.), average mortality of whites and negroes at, ii.,
259.

_Chastity_ of so-called pious slaves, ii., 226.

_Children_, bad effects on, from intercourse with slaves, i., 222.

_Christmas_ holidays of the negroes, i., 97; serenade in San Augustin,
375; presents to slaves, ii., 180.

_Church_ edifices, value of, in Georgia, ii., 388.

_Churches_ of coloured people in Washington, i., 36; description of a
religious service in New Orleans, 308.

_Claiborne_ (Alabama), curious mode of loading cotton at, i., 275.

_Clay, Mr. Cassius_, ii., 281.

_Climate_ of cotton lands, reckoned unsuitable for white labourers,
ii., 256.

_Clothing of slaves_, i., 46, 105; ii., 200; fondness for finery, 201.

_Coal_, beds of, in Virginia, i., 55; extensive fields of, ii., 365.

_Coloured Church_ members, statistics of, ii., 222; hollowness of their
professions, 225.

_Columbus_ (Georgia), i., 273; extensive manufactures, 274; frequent
distress of white labourers, 274; wretched hotel accommodation, 274.

_Conspiracy_ to overawe the North, i., 6.

_Comparison_ of the moral and social condition of the negro, in Slave
and Free States, ii., 238.

_Corporeal punishment_, severe instance of, witnessed, ii., 205.

_Cottage_ in Louisiana, a night spent in, ii., 38; superior manners of
the inmates, 39.

_Cotton_, fallacies with respect to its influence, i., 5; the monopoly
not beneficial to the Slave States, 8; neglected resources of the
so-called cotton States, 12; profitable cultivation, 15; number of
slaves engaged in cotton culture, 17; profits of large and small
planters, 18; limited area devoted to its growth, 24; effect of low
prices on abolition, 201; reckless loading on steamboats, 275; chiefly
produced in the valley of the Mississippi, 342; expense of raising,
ii., 182; planting and tillage the chief items, 253; advantages of
free labour, 262, 268; possibility of greatly increasing the cotton
supply, 269.

‘_Cotton Planter_,’ the, extract from, ii., 186.

_Cotton-planters_, general characteristics of, i., 18, 276, 343; their
want of the comforts of civilized life, 19, 137; their hospitality
generally a matter of business, ii., 95; sudden acquisition of wealth
by, 158.

_Counties_ of Georgia, statistics of, ii., 385.

“_Crackers_” of Georgia, religious service among the, i., 265; at
Columbus, 275.

_Creoles_, French, i., 338; ii., 33; their passion for gambling, 45;
general character and mode of life, 46.

_Crockett_ (Eastern Texas), scarcity of provisions at, ii., 2.

_Cruelty_ of negro slaveholders, i., 336.

_Cuba_, emancipation law of, i., 257; probable effect of its annexation
on sugar-planting in Louisiana, ii., 50.


‘_Daily News, the London_,’ extracts from, ii., 189, 190; letter in,
322.

_Dancing_, fondness of negroes for, ii., 72.

_Danger_ of the South, ii., 338.

_Darby, Mr._, on the effects of climate, ii., 257.

_De Bow, Mr._, his ‘Compendium of the Census,’ quoted, i., 19, 20, 24;
his ‘Review,’ quoted, on the valley of the Mississippi, ii., 63; on
the want of education, 293; ‘Resources of the South,’ 182, 227, 265,
310; his charges against the author, 311; on negro capacity, 345; on
abolitionist books, 360.

_Deep River_, extensive fisheries, i., 149; mode of fishing described,
150; expenditure of gunpowder, 151; removal of stumps of trees from the
bottom, 151; mode of operation, 151; negro divers, 152; cheerful and
willing to work, 153.

_Deer_, ingenious mode of killing, ii., 197.

_Deserted plantations_ in Texas, ii., 1.

_Diseases_ peculiar to negroes, i., 122; malaria, 235; yellow fever,
259; ii., 260.

_Dismal Swamp_, i., 144; importance of the lumber trade, 144;
character and mode of life of slaves employed as lumbermen, 146; their
superiority over field-hands generally, 148; a refuge for runaway
negroes, 155.

_Distances_, discrepancies in estimating, ii., 31.

_Distress_, in 1855, in New York, ii., 243; in the Southern States, 248.

_Divers_, skill and perseverance of slaves employed as, i., 151.

_Dogs_ used for hunting negroes, i., 156; ii., 120, 122, 178, 184.

_Domestic servants_, their great value in the South, i., 125; their
cost in proportion to white domestics, 125; a Southern lady’s
description of her household, 126; their carelessness, 131; in Eastern
Texas, ii., 12; indifference to scolding, 93.

_Douglas, Mrs._, on Amalgamation, i., 307.

_Drapetomania_, a disease peculiar to negroes, i., 122.

_Drivers_, selection of, i., 249; their qualifications and duties, 249;
their general character, 250.

“_Driving_,” i., 135; ii., 178, 201.

_Duel_, savage conduct and termination of, ii., 231.

_Dutch-French_ farmer, conversation with a, ii., 39.

_Dysæsthesia Æthiopica_, a disease peculiar to negroes, i., 122.


_Economy_, political, of Virginia, i., 108.

_Eggs_, negroes well supplied with, i., 103, 281; a circulating medium,
254.

_Education_, want of provision for, in the South, ii., 292.

_Educational_ projects in Mississippi, ii., 156; statistics of Northern
and Southern States, 331.

_Ellison, Mr._, on ‘Slavery and Secession,’ i., 58, _note_.

_Engineers_, slaves employed as, i., 240.

_English_ mechanic at New Orleans, conversation with, i., 296.

_Enlightenment_ of Christianized Africans, specimens of the, ii., 89,
225; a “pious” negro, 89.

_Epidemic_ of 1820, in the Southern States, i., 258; admirable conduct
of the slaves, 259.

_Epitaphs_ in negro burial-ground, i., 226.

_Excitement_ of blacks, at their religious meetings, i., 259, 309.

_Extravagance_ and wastefulness of the blacks, i., 98.

“_Eyebreaker_,” black gnat so called, its attacks on cattle, ii., 41.


_False assertion_ of the superior material condition of Southern slaves
to that of Northern and European labourers, ii., 242.

_Famine_ of 1855, its effect in New York, ii., 243; extracts from
Southern newspapers during, 248; how felt in the Slave States, 248.

_Farm_, in Maryland, described, i., 32; on James River, 52; description
of a, cultivated by free labour, 92; employment of Irishmen, 95.

_Farm-lands_, comparative value in Slave and Free States, i., 11, 35,
114.

_Farmer_, conversation with a free-labour, in Tennessee, on slavery,
ii., 140.

“_Fast man_” in Mississippi, ii., 154.

_February_ weather in Georgia, i., 227.

_Feliciana_, beauty of the region, ii., 143.

_Field-hands_ on a rice plantation, classification of, i., 246.

_Filthiness_ of negroes, ii., 200.

_Fires_ in the open air, negro fondness for, i., 215.

_Fisheries_ in North Carolina, i., 149; interesting and novel
operations, 150.

_Fleas_, mode of destroying by an ingenious negro, i., 104, _note_.

_Food_, supplied to the slaves in Virginia, i., 101; on a Georgia rice
plantation, 244; on a Mississippi plantation, ii., 179, 195; generally
in the South, 240, 241.

_Frambœsia_, or Yaws, slaves peculiarly subject to, i., 123.

_Free Labour_, plantation in Virginia cultivated by, i., 92.

_Fruit-trees_, supplied by a peddler, ii., 74.

_Funeral_, negro, in Richmond, i., 43; ludicrous features of, 44.


‘_General Gabriel’s_’ rebellion, i., 42.

_Georgia_, winter climate of, i., 227; “show plantations,” 230; strange
appearance and language of the rustics, 231; statistics of seaboard
district of, ii., 295, 385; worn-out cotton lands, 296.

_Germans_, their patient industry and docility as labourers, i., 33,
195; in Eastern Texas, ii., 19; in Western Texas, 96; immigration to
Texas, 102; their influence, 102; schools, 103; conversation with a
persevering German, 164; at Natchez, 171; superior quality of the
cotton picked by, 263; cultivation of cotton by, in Texas, 266.

_Glue-manufacturer_, his reasons for employing whites, i., 194.

_Grades_ of coloured people, i., 294.

_Graniteville_ Manufacturing Company, of South Carolina, improvement in
the condition of their operatives, ii., 286.

_Grave-yard_ for negroes, i., 224.

_Gregg, Mr. W. H._, quoted, ii., 286, 287, 301.

_Griscom, Mr. T. R._, on slave labour, i., 133, 135.

_Grog-shops_, their evil effects on the slaves, i., 251; homicide of a
negro, 253, _note_.

_Guano_, the Hon. W. Newton on the beneficial effects resulting from
its introduction, i., 101.


_Hammond, Governor_, on the influence of cotton, i., 7; on slavery,
ii., 228.

_Handbill_ of a North Carolina innkeeper, i., 163.

_Harper, Chancellor_, on the tendency of slavery to elevate the female
character, i., 222; his ‘Address,’ quoted, ii., 278.

‘_Harper’s Weekly_,’ quoted, ii., 158.

‘_Hernando Advance_,’ quoted ii., 147.

_Highlands_, feelings of inhabitants of, with regard to slavery, ii.,
129, 131, 135; their dislike of negro competition, 137; their manners
and phraseology, 137; general ignorance, 138.

_Hiring_ a saddle-horse, i., 61; lucid directions for an intricate
journey, 62.

_Hogs_, raising of, ii., 176; large plantations not suited to, 177.

_Homochitto_ ferry, ii., 164.

_Honesty_, instances of, among slaves, i., 148, 259; ii., 213, _note_.

_Horses_ in Natchez, ii., 167; objections of a Texas drover to “iron on
their feet,” 54.

_Hospitality_, reputation of the South for, generally unwarranted, ii.,
282; instances of its refusal, 315.

_Hotels_, at Washington, i., 28; Richmond, 51, 55; Norfolk, 160;
Gaston, 168; Fayetteville, 183; specimen of, in Eastern Texas, ii.,
5; first-class, at Memphis, 56; bill of fare and its result, 57; at
Woodville, dress-etiquette and wretched arrangements, 148.

‘_Household Words_,’ extract from, ii., 258.

_Houses_ of slave population in Virginia, i., 87, 104; in South
Carolina, 207; Georgia, 233, 237; Mississippi, ii., 68.

_Houston County_, ii., 1; deserted plantations, 1; scarcity of
provisions, 2; runaway mulatto captured by a negro, 21.

_Hunting_ a runaway slave in the back country, ii., 161.


“_Idee of Potasun_,” extraordinary composition of “the best medicine,”
i., 169.

_Ignorance_ of a planter’s son, ii., 90; of the father, 91; of a
respectable farmer, 130.

_Illinois_, a farmer of, on the condition of South-western Slave
States, ii., 308.

_Immersion_, fondness of religious negroes for, ii., 72.

_Impetuosity_ of the Southerners, ii., 327.

_Improvement_ in the condition of slaves within the last twenty years,
ii., 101.

_Indian_ farms in Mississippi, ii., 105.

_Indians_, in Louisiana, ii., 38; costume of Choctaws and Alabamas, 38;
hired to hoe cotton, 93.

_Intelligence_ and industry of negroes on a Mississippi plantation,
ii., 79.

_Irishmen_, employment of, i., 95; the best labourers to be obtained,
95; too self-confident and quarrelsome, 195; Germans preferred to them,
195; labourers to negro masons, 297.

_Iron-mining_ in Alabama, ii., 115; conversation with a miner, 116;
wages earned, 117.

_Italians_ at Natchez, ii., 169; their character by one of themselves,
170.


_James River_, i., 52, 142.

_Jefferson_, on the moral sense of negroes, i., 106; on the evils of
slavery, ii., 231.

_Jerked beef_, preparation of, ii., 25.

_Jews_, settlement of, in Southern towns, i., 252.

“_Jodel_,” the musical yell of the South Carolina negro, i., 214.

_Jones, Rev. C. C._, quoted, ii., 225.

‘_Journal of Commerce_,’ letter to, by a Virginian, on the scarcity of
labourers, i., 111.


_Kentucky_, negro-trader of, ii., 44.

_Killing_ negroes, viewed merely as an offence against property, ii.,
190.


_Labour_ of slaves, compared with that of labourers in Free States, i.,
10, 137; ii., 382; influence of the association in labour of slaves and
free-men, i., 300; cost of, in the Border States, ii., 380; difference
between slave and free, 382.

_Land_, value of, i., 114; in Virginia and Pennsylvania, ii., 369.

_Liberation_ of slaves on a plantation in Virginia, happy results of,
i., 92.

_Liberia_, emigration to, i., 149, 335.

_Liberty_, county of (Georgia), interest of the planters in the
well-being of their slaves, ii., 215; statistics of, 388.

_Licentiousness_, comparative, of North and South, i., 307.

_Liquor_, traffic with slaves, evils of, i., 251; habit of pilfering to
procure it, 252.

_Log-cabin_ in North Carolina, i., 180; in South Carolina, 206, 213; in
Eastern Texas, 367.

_Log-roads_ in the swamp, i., 145.

_Longstreet_, Judge, his ‘Georgia Scenes,’ quoted, ii., 297.

_Lorettes_, the, of New Orleans, i., 302; a quasi-marriage, 303;
economy of the system, 306.

_Louisiana_, laws of, favourable to negroes, i., 101; a negro’s opinion
of, compared with Virginia, 334; contrast of manners in, and in Texas,
ii., 31; good-nature of the people, 31; miserable condition of the
poorer planters, 44; disregard of slave-laws in, 47; Sunday-work, 47;
insecurity of slaveholding interest, 51.

_Lumberers_, slave, habits and mode of life in the swamp, i., 146;
superior to most slaves, 148.

_Lumber-trade_ in the Dismal Swamp, i., 145.

_Lying_, almost universal among slaves, i., 105.


_Maine Law_, arguments for, in the South, i., 253.

_Malaria_ of rice-fields, i., 235.

_Management_ of slaves, increasing difficulty of the, i., 252.

_Manchac Spring_, a well-ordered plantation, ii., 15.

_Manufactures_, beneficial effect of, on the community, i., 25; ii.,
286.

_Marriage_, indifference of negroes to, ii., 80.

_Maury, Lieutenant_, on the advantageous situation for commerce of
Norfolk (Virginia), i., 143.

_Medical survey_, ii., 197.

_Memphis_, ii., 55.

‘_Methodist Protestant_,’ the, quoted, ii., 228.

_Methodists_, their opinion on slavery, ii., 140; their five ‘Christian
Advocates,’ 140, _note_.

_Mexicans_, dislike of Americans to, ii., 19.

_Mill’s_ ‘Political Economy,’ quoted, ii., 338.

_Miner_, conversation with a, ii., 115.

_Mineral_ treasures of Virginia, ii., 365.

_Misrepresentation_, charge of, against the author, ii., 311.

_Missionary_ system, slavery as a, ii., 215.

_Mississippi River_, cotton plantations on the, i., 13, 17, _note_;
ii., 59; rich planters, 158; number of slaves on a plantation, 159.

_Mississippi_, feeling in, against slavery, ii., 98, 109; condition of
the slaves, 101.

_Mississippi, Northern_, remarkable plantation in, ii., 67; all the
negroes able to read, 70; their religion and morals, 71.

_Mobile_ (Alabama), description of, i., 282; scarcity of tradesmen and
mechanics, 283; chief business of the town, 283; English merchants,
owners of slaves, 284.

_Montgomery_ (Alabama), i., 274.

_Morals_ of white children suffer from association with slaves, i.,
222; ii., 229.

‘_Morehouse Advocate_,’ the, quoted, i., 298.

_Mulatto_, a runaway, captured by a negro, ii., 21; their value
compared with pure blacks, 82, 211.

_Murder_ of a young lady by a negro girl, i., 125, _note_.

_Music_, negro fondness for, ii., 73, 221.


_Nachitoches_ (Louisiana), i., 358.

_Nacogdoches_ (E. Texas), ii., 1; difficulty of procuring needful
supplies for our journey, 2.

_Names_ of blacks, ii., 208.

_Natchez_, gambling at, ii., 154; beauty of the neighbouring country,
165; the town described, 166; view of the Mississippi from the Bluff,
168; conversation with an Italian at, 169.

‘_National Intelligencer_,’ the, quoted, i., 143.

_Nebraska Bill_, opinions of, ii., 135, 141.

_Negroes_, numbers engaged in cotton culture, i., 17; their increased
value, 26; appearance of, in Virginia, 33; an illegal meeting at
Washington, 36; problem of Southern gentlemen with respect to, 61;
their Christmas holidays, 74; how they live in the swamp, 96, 155;
their cunning to avoid working for their masters’ profit, 99; alleged
incapacity of exercising judgment, 100; kind treatment in Louisiana,
101, 328, 338; proverbial habit of lying, 105; agrarian notions,
106; universally pilferers, 106; their simulation of illness, 118;
Dr. Cartwright’s work on their diseases, 122; runaways in the swamp,
155; mode of hunting them, 156; superior character of those employed
in the turpentine forest, 188; repulsive appearance of, on a Carolina
plantation, 208; their love for fires in the open air, 215; occasional
instances of trustworthiness and intelligence, 240; employed in the
cultivation of rice, 243; field-hands, 245; effect of organization of
labour, 248; permission to labour for themselves after working hours,
251; evil effects of grog-shops, 251; excitement at religious meetings,
259, 315; their jocosity, 281; engaged, in cultivation of sugar, 319,
328; their thoughts of being free, 334, 339; capacity for learning,
ii., 70, 99; mode of working in Mississippi, 178; treated as mere
property on large plantations, 192; general character of, 221. See
_Slaves_.

_Negro consumption_, i., 123.

_Negro_ slaveowners in Louisiana, i., 336; their cruelty, 336.

_Negro-traders_ in Louisiana and Kentucky, ii., 44.

_New Orleans_, arrival at, i., 290; first impressions, 291; the
French quarter, 291; cathedral, 293; mixture of races, 294; a lot of
twenty-two negroes, 295; number of free labourers, 299; manners and
morals of the citizens, 302; association with mulatto and quadroon
females, 302.

‘_New Orleans Crescent_,’ quoted, i., 300, 301.

‘_New Orleans Delta_,’ on justice to slaves, ii., 185.

_Newton_, the Hon. Willoughby, on the introduction of guano, i., 101.

‘_New York Times_,’ letters to, on slave and free labour, i., 134, 135;
ii., 268.

_Norfolk_ (Virginia), its filthy condition, i., 142; natural advantages
for trade and commerce, 143; market gardens, 153; hotel accommodation,
159.

‘_Norfolk Argus_,’ the, quoted, i., 154.

“_Norther_,” a, ii., 6; disinclination to labour caused by, 9.

_Nott, Dr._, his ‘Essay on the Value of Life in the South,’ quoted,
ii., 257.


_Oak-woods_, near Natchez, ii., 165.

_Ohio_, produce per acre compared with that of Virginia, ii., 255.

“_Old Family_,” the traditional, of Virginia or South Carolina, ii.,
335.

“_Old Man Corse_,” an Italian-French emigrant, ii., 32; his house and
family, 32; conversation with a negro, 34.

_Old Settler’s_, a night at an, in Eastern Texas, ii., 4.

_Opelousas_ (Louisiana), ii., 30.

_Overseers_, character of, i., 53, 94; ii., 184, 189; a kind and
efficient one on a Carolina plantation, i., 208; stringent terms of
contract, 250; precaution against undue corporeal punishment, 251;
surly behaviour of one in Mississippi, ii., 94; another specimen, 143;
a night in an overseer’s cabin, 175; wages of, 185, 195; their want of
consideration for slaves, 189.


_Passes_ to negroes, forged, i., 301.

_Patent Medicines_, ii., 175.

_Patent Office Reports_ for 1847 and 1852, quoted, i., 115.

“_Patriarchal Institution_,” a favourable aspect of the, i., 236.

_Peddlers_ of tobacco, i., 209; of cheap literature, 345.

_Peripneumonia notha_, or cold plague, i., 123.

_Phillips, Mr. M. W._, on plantation economy, ii., 186.

_Physical_ power, necessary to maintain discipline among slaves, i.,
124.

‘_Picayune, The_,’ quoted, i., 343; ii., 211.

“_Plank-dancing_,” ii., 73.

_Plantations_ in South Carolina described, i., 207, 233; in Georgia,
243; in Louisiana, 317; Creole plantation, 340; in Eastern Texas, 372;
ii., 9, 14; in Mississippi, 67, 90; ignorance of proprietor, 90; the
most profitable one visited, described, 193; the manager and overseers,
194; arrangements for the slaves, 195; their rate of increase, 209;
indiscriminate intercourse, 209; statistics of, 236.

_Planters_, characteristics of, i., 18, 19, 137, 276, 343; comfortless
living of, in Eastern Texas, ii., 10, 14; Creole, in Louisiana, 46;
their passion for increasing their negro stock, 48; life of, compared
with that of men of equal property in New York, 48; conversation with
a nervous planter, 152; hospitality of, in Mississippi, 163; general
character of those of the South, 230, 272.

_Plough-girls_, ii., 201.

_Polk, Bishop_, his description of slavery in the Red River county,
ii., 213, _note_.

_Poor whites_ in Virginia, i., 81, 95; their condition worse than that
of the slaves, 83; their reluctance to do the work of slaves, 112;
degraded condition of, in the turpentine forest, 188; their belief in
witchcraft, 189; of South Carolina, 231; trading with them injurious to
the negroes, 252; girls employed in the cotton-mills at Columbia, 273;
in Eastern Texas, their dishonesty, 372; engaged in iron mining, ii.,
115; in Mississippi, 196; feeling of irritation against, 355.

_Preacher_, Methodist, tales of “nigger” hunting by, ii., 122.

_Preachers_, negro, i., 309.

_Presbyterian minister_, employed by Georgia planters to instruct the
blacks, ii., 215; his opinions on slavery, 216 _et seq._

_Price-current_ of slaves at Richmond, Virginia, ii., 374.

_Progress_, comparative, of North and South, i., 25.

_Pronunciation_, effect of, on names, ii., 32.

_Property_ aspect of slavery, ii., 183.

_Privileged classes_ of the South, their condition and character,
ii., 272; their assertion of the beneficence of slavery, 273; their
two methods of vindicating it, 276; their claims to high-breeding and
hospitality generally unwarranted, 282; instances of the opposite
qualities, 315 _et seq._; their revengeful disposition, 327.

_Public worship_ in the South, provisions for, i., 259, 261.

_Purchase_ of a plantation, a gambling operation, i., 321.


_Quadroons_ at New Orleans, their beauty and healthiness, i., 294,
303; their cultivated tastes, 305; peculiar characteristics of their
association with whites, 305.

_Quakers_, negro opinion of, ii., 37.


_Racing_ on the Red River, i., 351.

_Railroads_, in Virginia, i., 38, 55; want of punctuality, 56, 141;
in North Carolina, 161; disregard of advertised arrangements, 167;
desirable improvements, 170; in South Carolina, 216; their superiority
in Georgia, 272.

_Raleigh_ (North Carolina), described, i., 170; desolate aspect of the
country around, 171.

_Rations_ of U. S. Army, compared with allowances to slaves, ii., 240.

_Red River_, cotton plantations on the, i., 13; preparations for a
voyage up the, 343; supper and sleeping arrangements, 350; a good shot,
352.

_Religion_, want of reverence for, i., 262; ii., 89, 104, 220.

_Religious condition_ of the South, i., 261; proportion of ministers to
people, 261; rivalry and jealousy of different sects, 262; religious
instruction to slaves objected to, ii., 214; general remarks on
religious professions in the slaves, 220.

_Religious service_ in a meeting-house in Georgia, i., 205; in a negro
chapel at New Orleans, 308.

_Remonstrance_ by South Carolina planters against religious instruction
to negroes, ii., 214.

_Revival_ among the slaves, ii., 222.

_Rice plantation_, a model one visited, i., 235; house servants and
field-hands, 236; negro-quarters, 237; nursery for black children,
238; a rice-mill, 239; burning stubble, 243; ploughing, 244; food of
the slaves, 244; field gangs, 245; task-work, 247; important duties
of drivers, 249; limitation of power of punishment, 251; trade on the
plantation, 254.

_Richmond_, Virginia, described, i., 40; railway economy, 42; negro
funeral, 43; ludicrous oratory, 44; Sunday appearance of coloured
people, 45; their demeanour to whites, 47; “Slaves for sale or hire,”
50; farm on James River, 52; coal-pit, 54.

‘_Richmond American_,’ the, quoted, i., 125, _note_; ‘Enquirer,’ ii.,
364; ‘Whig,’ 370.

_Ruffin, Mr. Edmund_, quoted, ii., 303.

_Runaway slaves_, i., 119, 155; ii., 7; advertisements of, 157; cure
for, ii., 6; pursuit of one, 20; hunting with dogs, 120, 122, 178;
stocks for punishment of, 161; conflict with a runaway, 161, _note_;
favourite lurking-ground for, 183.

_Russell, Mr._, his ‘North America: its Agriculture, &c.,’ quoted, ii.,
176, _note_, 182, 252, 256; mistaken views of, with respect to free and
slave labour, 252 _et seq._


_Sabine River_, country on each side described, ii., 24; coarseness
of the inhabitants, 25; a night with a gentleman of the country, 25;
“figures of speech,” 27.

_San Augustin_ (Eastern Texas), i., 374; Presbyterian and Methodist
universities merged in a “Masonic Institute,” 375.

_St. Francisville_, ii., 143; neighbouring country described, 145;
appearance of the slaves, 146.

_Savannah_ (Georgia), commerce and prospects of, i., 273.

_Scripture_ expressions, their familiar use by the negroes, i., 262; a
dram-seller’s advertisement, 263.

_Seguin, Dr._, on the capacity of the negro, ii., 344.

_Separation_ of North and South inconsistent with the welfare of
either, i., 1.

_Sermons_ by negroes, i., 311.

_Settlement_, negro, described, i., 237.

“_Show Plantations_,” i., 230.

_Sickness_, real and feigned, of slaves, i., 96, 118; ii., 198, 199.

_Skilled_ labour, negroes employed in, i., 240.

_Slavery_, Jefferson’s opinion on, i., 92; practicability of rapidly
extinguishing, 255; cruelty a necessity of, 355; strong opinion
against, of a Mississippi planter, ii., 98; of a Tennessee farmer, 140;
necessary to produce cheap cotton, ii., 252.

_Slaveholders_, opinions of, on slavery, i., 53, 60, 332, 354; ii., 92;
American, French, and negro slaveowners, 336, 337.

_Slave-mart_, at Richmond, i., 50; at Houston, ii., 22.

_Slaves_, liberated, doing well in Africa, i., 92; prospects of those
going North, 93.

_Slaves_, their value as labourers, i., 16, 94; as domestic servants,
125; causes of the high prices given for them, 16; number engaged in
cultivating cotton, 17; number annually exported from slave-breeding
to cotton States, 58; proportion of workers to slaves maintained,
59; improvement in their conditions, 94; their food and lodging
in Virginia, 102, 104; their clothing, 105; subject to peculiar
diseases, 122; necessity of humouring them, 128; have no training as
children, 131; work accomplished in a given time, 133; “driving,” 135;
increasing difficulties in their management, 252; instance of their
trustworthiness, 259; best method of inducing them to exert themselves,
328; bad effect of their association with white labourers, 330; and of
their dealings with petty traders, 331; condition of, on a profitable
plantation in Mississippi, ii., 195; worked hardest in the South-west,
202; some nearly white, 210; their religious instruction, 222;

impolicy of allowing them to cultivate patches, 238; auction at
Richmond described, 372. See _Negroes_.

_Slave States_, condition of the people, i., 8; not benefited by their
cotton monopoly, 8; dearness of slave-labour, 10, 94; antipathy of the
whites to work, 22; small proportion of the area devoted to cotton
cultivation, 24; their small contribution to the national treasury, 27;
general characteristics and features of the country, 85.

_Slave trade_, activity of, in Virginia, i., 57; difficulty of
obtaining statistics, 58.

_Sleeping-quarters_, unpleasant, ii., 87, 106; abundance of insect
vermin, 87; mode of keeping away gnats, 107.

‘_South Carolinian_,’ the, on planters and overseers, ii., 188.

_South_, danger of the, ii., 338; condition of the negro, 339; Southern
method of treatment dangerous, 344; unconscious habits of precaution,
346; apparent tranquillity deceptive, 348; police machinery, 350;
abolitionist literature, 358; cause of agitation, 361; impossibility of
acceding to the demands of the South, 362; threat of dissolution, 363;
probable result, 363.

‘_Southern Agriculturist_,’ the, quoted, ii., 182, 188.

‘_Southern Cultivator_,’ the, on the effect of the society of negroes
on their masters’ children, i., 222, _note_; on allowing negroes to
cultivate “patches,” 239, _note_.

_Stage-coach_ rides in North Carolina, i., 163, 174, 201; a swindling
driver, 163; cruelty to horses, 175; unexpected comforts of a piny-wood
stage-house, 177; in Mississippi, ii., 64.

_Stage-house_ at Fayetteville, described, i., 183.

_Steam-boats_: on Cape Fear River, i., 191; on the Alabama River,
275; passengers, 276; wastefulness and joviality of the crew, 281;
description of one on the Red River, 347; sleeping arrangements, 349;
life of the firemen, 350; deck-passengers, 350; a race, 351; gambling
on board, 353.

_Street-fights_ in Louisiana, ii., 53.

_Steward_, negro, on a rice plantation, importance of his office, i.,
240; privileges enjoyed by, 242.

_Subjugation_ of the South, its alleged impossibility, i., 2.

_Suffering_, occasional, different effect of, on the slave and free
labourer, ii., 251.

_Sugar_ plantation, in Louisiana, i., 317; the owner’s popularity,
318; mansion and offices, 319; arrangements for the slaves, 320; usual
expenses of carrying on, 321; ii., 236; mode of cultivation, i., 323;
planting the cane, 325; tillage, 327; grinding the cane, 328; increased
labour in grinding season willingly performed by the slaves, 328; late
improvements in the manufacture, 329.

_Suggestions_ for improving the condition of the negro, and preparing
him for freedom, i., 255.

_Sumner_ and Brooks, ii., 348.

_Sunday_, slave labour on, ii., 47, 181.

_Sweep-seines_, the largest in the world, used in the North Carolina
fisheries, i., 149.

“_Swell-heads_,” ii., 156, 166.


_Task-work_ general in Georgia and South Carolina, i., 247.

_Texas_, its prospect of becoming a Free State, ii., 102; influence of
the Germans, 102, 103.

_Texas, Eastern_, route across, i., 359; a day in the woods, 359;
plantation described, 359; a sick child, 361; the emigrant road, 365,
374; appearance of the emigrants, 365; the Red Lands, 373; Christmas
serenade, 375; a planter’s residence, ii., 9; his comfortless mode of
living, 10; promising sons, 10; literary dearth, 10; interest taken
in foreign affairs, 11; domestic servants, 13; a night, with another
planter, 14; his habits of life, 14, 15; determination of inhabitants
to conceal unfavourable facts, 18; hatred of Mexicans, 19. _Texas,
South-eastern_, district described, ii., 23; imperfect drainage, 23;
sparsely settled, 24; not a desirable place of abode, 24.

_Tennessee, North-eastern_, contrast between the homes of a slaveholder
and a farmer without slaves, ii., 138.

_Tennessee_ squire, a night with, ii., 128; his notion of buying
Irishmen, 129.

_Tobacco_, plantation in Eastern Virginia, i., 88; reasons for growing,
88; negroes not able to cultivate the finer sorts, 89; ii., 254; their
mode of payment, i., 98, 140.

_Tobacco-peddling_ in South Carolina, i., 209.

_Treating_ in Mississippi, ii., 155.

_Tree-peddler_, his catalogue of “curosest trees,” ii., 75.

_Trinity Bottom_, ii., 2; fertility of surrounding lands, 3.

_Turpentine_ forest, character of slaves employed in, i., 188.


_Umbrellas_ carried by Alabama Indians on horseback, ii., 38.

‘_Uncle Tom’s Cabin_,’ conversation on, i., 345, 354; ii., 135.


_Vicksburgh_, ii., 55.

_Virginia_, characteristics of the population, i., 39; association of
blacks and whites, 40; the Public Guard, 41; rebellion of coloured
people in 1801, 42; mode of living of Virginia gentlemen at home, 89;
treatment of negroes in, 101; Economy of Virginia, 108; an Englishman’s
impressions on landing in the United States, 108; apparent indifference
to shabby living, 108; its causes, 108; difference of means required
to procure the same result, 108; a similar analogy between the North
and South, 109; an exceptional case, 109; high price paid for skilled
labour, 110; state of the community as a whole, 111; complaints of
scarcity of hands, 111; the employment of whites in occupations usually
performed by slaves distasteful both to master and labourer, 112; land
most valuable, where proportion of slaves to whites is least, 114;
comparative cost of slave and free labour, 117; advantages of the
latter in wages paid, 118; in freedom from loss by disability, 118;
frequency of feigned illness, 118; peculiar diseases of negroes, 122;
means of maintaining discipline, 124; want of the motives to exertion
possessed by free labourers, 131; influence of slave system on the
habits of the whole community, 131; general want of civilized comforts,
137; waste of natural resources, 138, 143; rule of make-shift, 138;
exceptional instances, 139; decay of its agriculture, ii., 303; mineral
wealth, 365; want of means of education, 371.

_Virginia, Eastern_, its resources neglected, i., 8; poverty of its
inhabitants, 10; description of a ride, 64; a strange vehicle, 65; the
school-house, 65; “Old Fields,” 66; desolate appearance of the country,
66; a farm-house, 70; a country “grosery,” 72; the court-house, 74; a
night at an old plantation with a churlish host, 76; the “supper-room”
and “sitting-room,” 79; precarious existence of poor white labourers,
81; the “bed-room,” 84; the planter’s charge for his “hospitality,” 85;
sparse population, 86; the meeting-house, 86; negro quarters, 87; a
tobacco plantation, 88.

_Voyage_ from Mobile to New Orleans, i., 285.


_Washington_, number of visitors at, i., 28; a boarding-house, 28;
the market-place, 34; price of land in the neighbourhood, 35; number
of white labourers, 35; character of the coloured population, 36; an
illegal meeting, 36.

_Watchman_, the, on a Carolina plantation, i., 240, 242.

_Water-snakes_, numbers of, ii., 24, 29.

‘_West Feliciana Whig_,’ account of slaughter of a runaway, ii.,
161.;

_Wharves_, absence of, on the Southern rivers, ii., 55.

_Whip_, constant use of the, ii., 202.

_Whipping_, of coloured preachers of the Gospel, i., 226; of a slave
girl, ii., 205.

_Wise, Governor_, on the decay of Virginia, ii., 303.

_Whites_, some slaves hardly to be distinguished from pure-blooded,
ii., 210.

_White’s_ ‘Statistics of Georgia,’ ii., 385.

_Wilmington_ (North Carolina), i., 97; destruction of a building at,
because erected by negroes, ii., 98.

‘_Wilmington Herald_,’ quoted, ii., 99, _note_.

_Witchcraft_, belief in, by poor whites, i., 189.

_Women_ employed in ploughing, ii., 201.

“_Wooding_” on Cape Fear River, i., 193.

_Woodville_ (Mississippi), ii., 148; dress etiquette, 148;
neighbourhood described, 149; robberies, 149.


_Yazoo Bottoms_, the son of a planter in, ii., 63; journey with him in
Northern Mississippi, 64; his dislike to babies, 66.

_Yellow Fever_, good conduct of negroes at Savannah during its raging,
i., 259; at Natchez, ii., 160.



FOOTNOTES:

[1] Many freemen have been kidnapped in Illinois and sold into slavery.

[2] Evidently an allusion to the “underground railroad,” or smuggling
of runaway slaves, which is generally supposed to be managed mainly by
Quakers. This shows how knowledge of the abolition agitation must be
carried among the slaves to the most remote districts.

[3] Creole means simply native of the region, but in Louisiana (a
vast region purchased, by the United States, of France, for strategic
reasons, and now proposed to be filibustered away from us), it
generally indicates French blood.

[4] I also saw slaves at work every Sunday that I was in Louisiana. The
law permits slaves to be worked, I believe, on Sunday; but requires
that some compensation shall be made to them when they are—such as a
subsequent holiday.

[5] The following resolutions were proposed (I am not sure that they
were adopted) in the Southern Commercial Convention, at New Orleans, in
1855:

“_Resolved_,—That this Convention strongly recommends the Chambers of
Commerce and Commission Merchants of our Southern and South-western
cities to adopt such a system of laws and regulations as will put a
stop to the dangerous practice, heretofore existing, of making advances
to planters, in anticipation of their crops—a practice entirely at
variance with everything like safety in business transactions, and
tending directly to establish the relations of master and slave between
the merchant and planter, by bringing the latter into the most abject
and servile bondage.

“_Resolved_,—That this Convention recommend, in the most urgent manner,
that the planters of the Southern and South-western States patronize
exclusively our home merchants, and that our Chambers of Commerce,
and merchants generally, exert all their influence to exclude foreign
agents from the purchase and sale of produce in any of our Southern and
South-western cities.

“_Resolved, further_,—That this Convention recommend to the
legislatures of the Southern and South-western States to pass laws,
making it a penitentiary offence for the planters to ask of the
merchants to make such pecuniary advances.”

[6] The Junta was a filibustering conspiracy against Cuba.

[7] Cocoa is a grass much more pernicious, and more difficult of
extirpation when it once gets a footing upon a sugar plantation, than
the Canada thistle, or any other weed known at the North. Several
plantations have been ruined by it, and given up as worthless by their
owners.

[8] See “Resources;” article, “Mississippi,” etc.

[9] At Wilmington, North Carolina, on the night of the 27th of July
(1857), the frame-work of a new building was destroyed by a number of
persons, and a placard attached to the disjointed lumber, stating that
a similar course would be pursued in all cases, against edifices that
should be erected by negro contractors or carpenters, by one of which
class of men the house had been constructed. There was a public meeting
called a few days afterwards, to take this outrage into consideration,
which was numerously attended. Resolutions were adopted, denouncing the
act, and the authorities were instructed to offer a suitable reward
for the detection and conviction of the rioters. “The impression was
conveyed at the meeting,” says the _Wilmington Herald_, “that the
act had been committed by members of an organized association, said
to exist here, and to number some two hundred and fifty persons, and
possibly more, who, as was alleged, to right what they considered
a grievance in the matter of negro competition with white labour,
had adopted the illegal course of which the act in question was an
illustration.” Proceedings of a similar significance had occurred at
various points, especially in Virginia.

[10] See De Bow’s Review, for August, 1857 p. 117.

[11] RELIGION IN VIRGINIA.—A mass meeting of citizens of Taylor county,
Virginia, was held at Boothesville recently, at which the following,
among other resolutions, was passed unanimously:

“That the five _Christian Advocates_, published in the cities of New
York, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Chicago, having become
Abolition sheets of the rankest character, we ask our commonwealth’s
attorneys and post-masters to examine them, and, if found to be of an
unlawful character, to deal with them and their agents as the laws of
our State direct.”—_Washington Republic._

[12] “This latter received its beautiful and expressive name from its
beautifully variegated surface of hills and valleys, and its rare
combination of all the qualities that are most desired in a planting
country. It is a region of almost fairy beauty and wealth. Here are
some of the wealthiest and most intelligent planters and the finest
plantations in the State, the region of princely taste and more than
patriarchal hospitality,” etc.—_Norman’s New Orleans._

[13] “FINE PROSPECT FOR HAY.—While riding by a field the other day,
which looked as rich and green as a New England meadow, we observed
to a man sitting on the fence, ‘You have a fine prospect for hay,
neighbour.’ ‘Hay! that’s _cotton, sir_,’ said he, with an emotion that
betrayed an excitement which we cared to provoke no further; for we
had as soon sport with a rattlesnake in the blind days of August as a
farmer at this season of the year, badly in the grass. * * *

“All jesting aside, we have never known so poor a prospect for cotton
in this region. In some instances the fields are clean and well worked,
but the cotton is diminutive in size and sickly in appearance. We have
seen some fields so foul that it was almost impossible to tell what had
been planted.

“All this backwardness is attributable to the cold, wet weather that we
have had almost constantly since the planting season commenced. When
there was a warm spell, it was raining so that ploughs could not run to
any advantage; so, between the cold and the rain, the cotton crop is
very unpromising. * * *

“The low, flat lands this year have suffered particularly. Thoroughly
saturated all the time, and often overflowed, the crops on them are
small and sickly, while the weeds and grass are luxurious and rank.

“A week or two of dry hot weather will make a wonderful change in our
agricultural prospects, but we have no idea that any sort of seasons
could bring the cotton to more than an average crop.”—_Hernando (Miss.)
Advance, June 22, 1854._

[14] “Sectional excitement” had given a great impetus to educational
projects in the South, and the Mississippi newspapers about this
time contained numerous advertisements of a similar character to the
following:

“CALHOUN INSTITUTE—FOR YOUNG LADIES; MAÇON, NOXUBEE COUNTY,
MISSISSIPPI.—W. R. POINDEXTER, A.M., Principal and Proprietor.—The
above School, formerly known as the ‘Maçon Female Institute,’ will be
reopened on the first of October, 1855, with an entirely new corps of
teachers from Principal down. Having purchased the property at public
sale, and thus become _sole proprietor_, the Principal has determined
to use all means he can now command, as well as he may realize for
several years yet to come, in building, refitting and procuring such
appurtenances as shall enable him to contribute his full quota, as
a professional man, to the progress of the great cause of ‘SOUTHERN
EDUCATION.’”

[15] As “A SOUTHERN LAWYER,” writing for _Harper’s Weekly_
(February, 1859), observes: “The sudden acquisition of wealth in the
cotton-growing region of the United States, in many instances by
planters commencing with very limited means, is almost miraculous.
Patient, industrious, frugal, and self-denying, nearly the entire
amount of their cotton-crops is devoted to the increase of their
capital. The result is, in a few years large estates, as if by magic,
are accumulated. The fortunate proprietors then build fine houses,
and surround themselves with comforts and luxuries to which they were
strangers in their earlier years of care and toil.”

[16] The following is a characteristic newspaper item of this vicinity:—

From the _West Feliciana Whig_.—“On Saturday last, a runaway negro was
killed in the parish of East Baton Rouge, just below the line of this
parish, under the following circumstances: Two citizens of Port Hudson,
learning that a negro was at work on a flat boat, loading with sand,
just below that place, who was suspected of being a runaway, went down
in a skiff for the purpose of arresting him.

“Having seized him and put him into the skiff they started back, but
had not proceeded far when the negro, who had been at the oars, seized
a hatchet and assaulted one of them, wounding him very seriously. A
scuffle ensued, in which both parties fell overboard. They were both
rescued by the citizen pulling to them with the skiff. Finding him so
unmanageable, the negro was put ashore, and the parties returned to
Port Hudson for arms and a pack of negro dogs, and started again with
the intention to capture him. They soon got on his trail, and when
found again he was standing at bay upon the outer edge of a large raft
of drift wood, armed with a club and pistol.

“In this position he bade defiance to men and dogs—knocking the latter
into the water with his club, and resolutely threatening death to any
man who approached him. Finding him obstinately determined not to
surrender, one of his pursuers shot him. He fell at the third fire,
and so determined was he not to be captured, that when an effort was
made to rescue him from drowning he made battle with his club, and sunk
waving his weapon in angry defiance at his pursuers. He refused to give
the name of his owner.”

[17] This may be compared with the town of Springfield, county of
Sangammon, Illinois, in which, with a population of 19,228 (nearer to
that of Natchez than any other town I observe in the Free States), the
number of registered school children is 3,300, the public libraries
contain 20,000 volumes, and the churches can accommodate 28,000 sitters.

[18] “THE WASHINGTON REMEDIES—TO PLANTERS AND OTHERS.—These Remedies,
now offered to the public under the title of the Washington Remedies,
are composed of ingredients, many of which are not even known to
Botany. No apothecary has them for sale; they are supplied to the
subscriber by the native red-men of Louisiana. The recipes by which
they are compounded have descended to the present possessor, M. A.
MICKLEJOHN, from ancestors who obtained them from the friendly Indian
tribes, prior to and during the Revolution, and they are now offered to
the public with that confidence which has been gained from a knowledge
of the fact that during so long a series of years there has never been
known an instance in which they have failed to perform a speedy and
permanent cure. The subscribers do not profess these remedies will
cure _every_ disarrangement of the human system, but in such as are
enumerated below they feel they cannot fail. The directions for use
have only to be strictly followed, and however despairing the patient
may have been he will find cause for blissful _hope_ and renewed _life_.

“_These preparations are no Northern patent humbug_, but are
manufactured in New Orleans by a Creole, who has long used them in
private practice, rescuing many unfortunate victims of disease from the
grave, after they have been given up by their physicians as incurable,
or have been tortured beyond endurance by laceration and painful
operations.”

[19] “The bacon is almost entirely imported from the Northern States,
as well as a considerable quantity of Indian corn. This is reckoned
bad management by intelligent planters. * * * On this plantation as
much Indian corn was raised as was needed, but little bacon, which was
mostly imported from Ohio. The sum annually paid for this article was
upwards of eight hundred pounds. Large plantations are not suited to
the rearing of hogs; for it is found almost impossible to prevent the
negroes from stealing and roasting the pigs.” Mr. Russell, visiting the
plantation of a friend near Natchez.—_North America: its Agriculture_,
etc., p. 265.

[20] This would give at this season hardly less than sixteen hours of
plodding labour, relieved by but one short interval of rest, during the
daylight, for the hoe-gang. It is not improbable. I was accustomed to
rise early and ride late, resting during the heat of the day, while in
the cotton district, but I always found the negroes in the field when
I first looked out, and generally had to wait for the negroes to come
from the field to have my horse fed when I stopped for the night. I am
told, however, and I believe, that it is usual in the hottest weather,
to give a rest of an hour or two to all hands at noon. I never happened
to see it done. The legal limit of a slave’s day’s work in South
Carolina is fifteen hours.

[21] I was told by a gentleman in North Carolina, that the custom of
supplying molasses to negroes in Mississippi, was usually mentioned
to those sold away from his part of the country, to reconcile them to
going thither.

[22] In De Bow’s ‘Resources of the South,’ vol. i., p. 150, a table
is furnished by a cotton-planter to show that the expenses of raising
cotton are “generally greatly underrated.” It is to be inferred that
they certainly are not underrated in the table. On “a well improved
and properly organized plantation,” the expense of feeding one hundred
negroes, “as deduced from fifteen years’ experience” of the writer,
is asserted in this table to be $750 per annum, or seven dollars
and a half each; in this sum is included, however, the expenses of
the “hospital and the overseer’s table.” This is much less than the
expense for the same purposes, if the overseer’s account was true, of
the plantation above described. Clothing, shoes, bedding, _sacks for
gathering cotton, and so forth_, are estimated by the same authority
to cost an equal sum—$7.50 for each slave. I have just paid on account
of a day labourer on a farm in New York, his board bill, he being a
bachelor living at the house of another Irish labourer with a family.
The charge is twenty-one times as large as that set down for the slave.

[23] “I was informed that some successful planters, who held several
estates in this neighbourhood [Natchez] made it a rule to _change
their overseers every year_, on the principle that the _two_ years’
service system is sure to spoil them.”—_Russell’s North America: its
Agriculture_, etc., p. 258.

“Overseers are changed every year; a few remain four or five years, but
the average time they remain on the same plantation does not exceed two
years.”—_Southern Agriculturist_, vol. iv., p. 351.

[24] “On Monday last, as James Allen (overseer on Prothro’s
plantation at St. Maurice) was punishing a negro boy named Jack, for
stealing hogs, the boy ran off before the overseer had chastised
him sufficiently for the offence. He was immediately pursued by
the overseer, who succeeded in catching him, when the negro drew a
knife and inflicted a terrible gash in his abdomen. The wounds of
the overseer were dressed by Dr. Stephens, who pronounces it a very
critical case, but still entertains hope of his recovery.”—_Nachitoches
Chronicle._

[25] Mr. Russell makes an observation to the same effect with regard to
the Cuba plantations, p. 230. On these large cotton plantations there
are frequently more men than women, men being bought in preference to
women for cotton picking.

The contrary is usually the case on the small plantations, where the
profits of breeding negroes are constantly in view.

[26] “A woman, calling herself Violet Ludlow, was arrested a few
days ago, and committed to jail, on the supposition that she was a
runaway slave belonging to A. M. Mobley, of Upshur county, Texas, who
had offered through our columns a reward of fifty dollars for her
apprehension. On being brought before a justice of the peace, she
stated that she was a white woman, and claimed her liberty. She states
that she is a daughter of Jeremiah Ludlow, of Pike county, Alabama, and
was brought from that country in 1853, by George Cope, who emigrated
to Texas. After arriving in Texas, she was sold by George Cope to a
Doctor Terry, in Upshur county, Texas, and was soon after sold by him
to a Mrs. Hagen, or Hagens, of the same county. Violet says that she
protested against each sale made of her, declaring herself a free
woman. She names George Gilmer, Thomas Rogers, John Garret, and others,
residents of Pike county, Alabama, as persons who have known her from
infancy as the daughter of one Jeremiah Ludlow and Rene Martin, a widow
at the time of her birth, and as being a free white woman, and her
father a free white man. Violet is about instituting legal proceedings
for her freedom.”—_Shreveport Southwestern._

“Some days since, a woman named Pelasgie was arrested as a fugitive
slave, who has lived for more than twelve years in this city as a
free woman. She was so nearly white that few could detect any traces
of her African descent. She was arrested at the instance of a man
named Raby, who claimed her as belonging to an estate of which he is
heir-at-law. She was conveyed to the First District guard-house for
safe keeping, and while there she stated to Acting Recorder Filleul
that she was free, had never belonged to Raby, and had been in the
full and unquestioned enjoyment of her freedom in this city for the
above-mentioned period. She also stated that she had a house, well
furnished, which she was in the habit of letting out in rooms.”—_New
Orleans Picayune._

[27] “Bishop Polk, of Louisiana, was one of the guests. He assured
me that he had been all over the country on Red River, the scene of
the fictitious sufferings of ‘Uncle Tom,’ and that he had found the
temporal and spiritual welfare of the negroes well cared for. He had
confirmed thirty black persons near the situation assigned to Legree’s
estate. He is himself the owner of four hundred slaves, whom he
endeavours to bring up in a religious manner. He tolerates no religion
on his estate but that of the Church. He baptizes all the children,
and teaches them the Catechism. All, without exception, attend the
Church service, and the chanting is creditably performed by them, in
the opinion of their owner. Ninety of them are communicants, marriages
are celebrated according to the Church ritual, and the state of morals
is satisfactory. Twenty infants had been baptized by the bishop just
before his departure from home, and he had left his whole estate,
his keys, &c., in the sole charge of one of his slaves, without the
slightest apprehension of loss or damage. In judging of the position
of this Christian prelate as a slave-owner, the English reader must
bear in mind that, by the laws of Louisiana, emancipation has been
rendered all but impracticable, and, that, if practicable, it would
not necessarily be, in all cases, an act of mercy or of justice.”—_The
Western World Revisited._ By the Rev. Henry Caswall, M.A., author of
“America and the American Church,” etc. Oxford, John Henry Parker, 1854.

[28] In White’s ‘Statistics of Georgia’ (page 377), the citizens
of Liberty county are characterized as “unsurpassed for the great
attention paid to the duties of religion.”—Dr. Stevens, in his ‘History
of Georgia,’ describes them as “worthy of their sires,” who were, “the
moral and intellectual nobility of the province,” “whose accession
was an honour to Georgia, and has ever proved one of its richest
blessings.”—In the biography of General Scrivens the county of Liberty
is designated “proud spot, of Georgia’s soil!”—Dr. J. M. B. Harden,
in a medical report of the county, says: “The use of intoxicating
drinks has been almost entirely given up” by its people.—White says
(‘Statistics,’ p. 373), “The people of Liberty, from their earliest
settlement, have paid much attention to the subject of education.
Excellent schools are found in different portions of the county, and it
is believed a greater number of young men from Liberty graduate at our
colleges than from any [other] section of Georgia. Indeed, it has been
proverbial for furnishing able ministers and instructors.”

[29] The following newspaper paragraph indicates the wholesale way in
which slaves may be nominally Christianized:—

“REVIVAL AMONG THE SLAVES.—Rev. J. M. C. Breaker, of Beaufort, S.C.,
writes to the _Southern Baptist_, that within the last three months
he has baptized by immersion three hundred and fifty persons, _all
of them, with a few exceptions, negroes_. These conversions were the
result of a revival which has been in progress during the last six
months. On the 12th inst., he baptized two hundred and twenty-three
converts—all blacks but three—and the ceremony, although performed
with due deliberation, occupied only one hour and five minutes. This
is nearly four a minute, and Mr. Breaker considers it a demonstration
that the three thousand converted on the day of Pentecost could easily
have been baptized by the twelve apostles—each taking two hundred and
fifty—in an hour and thirteen minutes.”

[30] “A small farmer,” who “has had control of negroes for thirty
years and has been pursuing his present system with them for twenty
years,” and who “owning but a few slaves is able,” as he observes, “to
do better by them” than large planters, writing to Mr. De Bow, says:
“I have tried faithfully to break up immorality. I have not known an
oath to be sworn for a long time. I know of no quarrelling, no calling
harsh names, and but little stealing. _Habits of amalgamation, I cannot
stop._ I can only check it in name. I am willing to be taught, for I
have tried everything I know.” He has his field-negroes attend his
own family prayers on Sunday, prayer meetings at four o’clock Sunday
mornings, etc.—_De Bow’s Resources_, vol. ii., p. 337.

[31] The “Southern Presbyterian,” in reviewing some observations made
before a South Carolina Bible Society, in which it had been urged that
if slaves were permitted to read the Bible, they would learn from it to
be more submissive to the authority which the State gives the master
over them, says that the speaker “seems to be uninformed of the fact
that the Scriptures are read in our churches every Sabbath day, and
those very passages which inculcate the relative duties of masters and
servants in consequence of their textual, _i. e._ legally prescribed
connections, are _more frequently read_ than any other portions of the
Bible.”

[32] Organized action for the abolition of slavery in the island of
Java, has since been authentically reported.

[33] Twice it happened to come to my knowledge that sons of a planter,
by whom I was lodged while on this journey—lads of fourteen or
sixteen—who were supposed to have slept in the same room with me,
really spent the night, till after daybreak, in the negro cabins. A
southern merchant, visiting New York, to whom I expressed the view I
had been led to form of the evil of slavery in this way, replied that
he thought I over-estimated the evil to boys on the plantations, but
that it was impossible to over-estimate it in towns. “I have personal
knowledge,” he continued, “that there are but two lads, sixteen
years old, in our town, [a small market town of Alabama,] who have
not already had occasion to resort to remedies for the penalty of
licentiousness.” “When on my brother’s plantation, just before I came
North,” said another Southern merchant, on his annual visit to New
York, “I was informed that each of his family-servants were suffering
from ——, and I ascertained that each of my brother’s children, girls
and boys, had been informed of it, and knew how and from whom it had
been acquired. The negroes being their familiar companions, I tried
to get my brother to send them North with me to school. I told him he
might as well have them educated in a brothel at once, as in the way
they were growing up.”

[34] Jefferson fails to enumerate, among the evils of slavery, one
of its influences which I am inclined to think as distinct and as
baneful to us nationally as any other. How can men retain the most
essential quality of true manhood who daily, without remonstrance
or interference, see men beaten, whose position renders effective
resistance totally impracticable—and not only men, but women, too! Is
it not partially the result of this, that self-respect seldom seems
to suggest to an angry man at the South that he should use anything
like magnanimity? that he should be careful to secure fair play for
his opponent in a quarrel? A gentleman of veracity, now living in the
South, told me that among his friends he had once numbered two young
men, who were themselves intimate friends, till one of them, taking
offence at some foolish words uttered by the other, challenged him. A
large crowd assembled to see the duel, which took place on a piece of
prairie ground. The combatants came armed with rifles, and at the first
interchange of shots the challenged man fell disabled by a ball in
the thigh. The other, throwing down his rifle, walked toward him, and
kneeling by his side, drew a bowie knife, and deliberately butchered
him. The crowd of bystanders not only permitted this, but the execrable
assassin still lives in the community, has since married, and, as
far as my informant could judge, his social position has been rather
advanced than otherwise, from thus dealing with his enemy. In what
other English—in what other civilized or half-civilized community would
such cowardly atrocity have been endured?

[35] Richland District contains seven thousand white, and thirteen
thousand slave population. The Report is published in the _Charleston
Standard_, October 12th, 1854.

[36] “Most persons allow their negroes to cultivate a small crop of
their own. For a number of reasons the practice is a bad one. It is
next to impossible to keep them from working the crop on the Sabbath.
They labour at night when they should be at rest. There is no saving
more than to give them the same amount; for, like all other animals,
the negro is only capable of doing a certain amount of work without
injury. To this point he may be worked at his regular task, and any
labour beyond this is an injury to both master and slave. They will
pilfer to add to what cotton or corn they have made. If they sell
the crop and trade for themselves, they are apt to be cheated out of
a good portion of their labour. They will have many things in their
possession, under colour of purchases, which we know not whether they
have gained honestly.”—_Southern Cultivator._

[37] P. W. Fraser, p. 574, Pub. Doc. VI., 1846.

[38] Among the thousands of applicants for soup, and bread, and fuel,
as charity, I never saw, during “the famine” in New York, one negro.
Five Points Pease said to me, “The negro seems to be more provident
than the Celt. The poor blacks always manage to keep themselves more
decent and comfortable than the poor whites. They very rarely complain,
or ask for charity; and I have often found them sharing their food with
white people, who were too poor to provide for themselves.” A great
deal of falsehood is circulated and accredited about the sufferings of
the free negroes at the North. Their condition is bad enough, but no
worse than that of any men educated and treated as they are, must be;
and it is, on an average, far better than that of the slave.

[39] In the obscure country papers of Northern Alabama and Georgia, and
Western South Carolina, I have seen many more descriptions, similar
to these, of this famine; but I cannot now lay my hand on them. These
I have by accident, not having taken pains to collect them for this
purpose. In a district of the Slave States, where it is boasted that
more than a hundred bushels of maize to the acre has been raised, and
where not one out of five hundred of the people is engaged in any other
than agricultural industry, I have myself bought maize, which had been
raised by free labour, in Ohio, at two dollars a bushel.

[40] “North America, its Agriculture and Climate,” by Robert Russell,
Kilwhiss. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1857.

[41] De Bow, vol. iii., p. 342.

[42] See De Bow’s “Resources,” art. Tobacco.

[43] Vol. i., p. 175, “Resources.”

[44] In my Notes on Eastern Virginia, it was mentioned that a tobacco
planter informed me that he could not raise the finer sorts of tobacco
with profit, because he could not make his slaves take pains enough
with it; and in certain localities in Ohio, having a favourable soil
for the production of fine or high-priced tobacco, it appears that free
labour is engaged more profitably in the cultivation of tobacco than in
the cultivation of corn. It is the same in parts of Connecticut and of
Massachusetts. Except in these limited districts, however, it is found
that the labour of Ohio, as of Connecticut and Massachusetts, is more
profitably directed to the cultivation of Indian corn and other crops
than of tobacco.

[45] “Resources,” p. 175.

[46] Virginia, with 10,360,135 acres of improved land, produced,
according to the last census returns,

     35,254,319 bushels of corn,
     56,803,227 pounds of tobacco.

Ohio, with 9,851,493 acres of improved land, produced

     59,078,695 bushels of corn,
     10,454,449 pounds of tobacco.

The aggregate value of these two products alone, at present New York
prices, would be

     Ohio          $5,127,223,565
     Virginia      $3,564,639,385

Actual crops per acre, on the average, as returned by the marshals for
1849-50 (Census Compilation, p. 178):

                   Corn.      Tobacco.
     Ohio       36 bushels   730 pounds.
     Virginia   18    ”      630    ”

[47] “North America, its Climate,” etc., p. 286.

[48] De Bow’s “Resources.” See “Seaboard Slave States,” pp. 463 and
586, for further southern evidence.

[49] A writer in “Household Words,” speaking of the “popular fallacy
that a man cannot do a hard day’s work in the climate of India,” says:—

“I have seen as hard work, real bone and muscle work, done by citizens
of the United Kingdom in the East, as was ever achieved in the cold
West, and all upon rice and curry—not curry and rice—in which the rice
has formed the real meal, and the curry has merely helped to give it a
relish, as a sort of substantial Kitchener’s zest, or Harvey’s sauce.
I have seen, likewise, Moormen, Malabars, and others of the Indian
labouring classes, perform a day’s work that would terrify a London
porter, or coal-whipper, or a country navvy, or ploughman; and under
the direct rays of a sun that has made a wooden platform too hot to
stand on in thin shoes, without literally dancing with pain, as I have
done many a day, within six degrees of the line.”

[50] Dr. Barton, of New Orleans, in a paper read before the Academy of
Science of that city, says: “The class of diseases most fatal in the
South are mainly of a ‘_preventible_ nature,’ and embraces fevers and
intestinal diseases, and depends mostly on conditions under the control
of man, as drainage, the removal of forest growth—of personal exposure
and private hygiene. The climate further north is too rigid the greater
part of the year for personal exposure to the open air, so essential
to the enjoyment of health, and when the extremes are great and rapid,
another class of maladies predominate—the pulmonary, as well as others
arising from crowding, defective ventilation and filth—exacting
preventive measures from the public authorities with as much urgency as
the worst fevers of the South.”

[51] Indian corn has been considered an exception, and there are
probably larger corn fields in Indiana than cotton fields in
Mississippi.

[52] I believe that plantations or agricultural operations devoted to a
single crop are, as a general rule, profitable in proportion to their
size in the Free States, unless, indeed, the market is a small one and
easily overstocked, which is never the case with the cotton market.

[53] Vol. i., p. 175, “Resources.”

[54] Some one can render a service to civilization by publishing
precisely what feudal rights, so called, were abolished in large parts
of Germany and Hungary in 1848, and what results to the commerce of the
districts affected the greater freedom and impulse to industry arising
therefrom has had. If I am rightly informed, trade, in many cases, both
export and import, has already much more than quadrupled in value,
thousands of peasants now demanding numerous articles and being able to
pay for them, which before only a few score or hundred proprietors were
expected to buy.

[55] From an “_Address on Climatology_,” before the Academy of Science,
by Dr. Barton, of New Orleans:—

“The institution of slavery operates by contrast and comparison; it
elevates the tone of the superior, adds to its refinement, allows more
time to cultivate the mind, exalts the standard in morals, manners,
and intellectual endowments; operates as a safety-valve for the evil
disposed, leaving the upper race purer, while it really preserves from
degradation, in the scale of civilization, the inferior, which we see
is their uniform destiny when left to themselves. The slaves constitute
essentially the lowest class, and society is immeasurably benefitted
by having this class, which constitutes the offensive fungus—the great
cancer of civilized life—a vast burthen and expense to every community,
under surveillance and control; and not only so, but under direction
as an efficient agent to promote the general welfare and increase
the wealth of the community. The history of the world furnishes no
institution under similar management, where so much good actually
results to the governors and the governed as this in the Southern
States of North America.”

“It is by the existence of slavery, exempting so large a portion
of our citizens from labour, that we have leisure for intellectual
pursuits.”—_Governor Hammond, in South. Literary Mess._

“Would you do a benefit to the horse or the ox, by giving him a
cultivated understanding, or fine feelings? So far as the _mere
labourer_ has the pride, the knowledge, or the aspirations of a free
man, he is unfitted for his situation, and must doubly feel its
infelicity. If there are sordid, servile, and laborious offices to be
performed, is it not better that there should be sordid, servile, and
laborious beings to perform them?”—_Chancellor Harper; Address to South
Carolina Institute._

“The relations between the North and the South are very analogous to
those which subsisted between Greece and the Roman Empire, after the
subjugation of Achaia by the Consul Mummius. The dignity and energy
of the Roman character, conspicuous in war and in politics, were not
easily tamed and adjusted to the arts of industry and literature.
The degenerate and pliant Greeks, on the contrary, excelled in the
handicraft and polite professions. We learn from the vigorous invective
of Juvenal, that they were the most useful and capable of servants,
whether as pimps or professors of rhetoric. Obsequious, dexterous,
and ready, the versatile Greeks monopolized the business of teaching,
publishing, and manufacturing in the Roman Empire—allowing their
masters ample leisure for the service of the State, in the Senate or in
the field.”—_Richmond Enquirer._

[56] The business committee of the South Carolina State Agricultural
Society reported, Aug. 9, 1855:—

“Our old fields are enlarging, our homesteads have been decreasing
fearfully in number. * * * We are not only losing some of our most
energetic and useful citizens to supply the bone and sinew of other
States, but we are losing our slave population, which is the true
wealth of the State, our stocks of hogs, horses, mules, and cattle
are diminishing in size and decreasing in number, and our purses
are strained for the last cent to supply their places from the
North-western States.”

[57] De Bow’s “Review,” vol. xviii. p. 790.

[58] “Georgia Scenes,” by the Rev. and Hon. Judge Longstreet, now
President of the University of Mississippi. Harper’s edition, p. 76.

[59] Address before the South Carolina Institute.

[60] Fifth Annual Report to Directors of Graniteville Company.

[61] Mr. Russell uses the language of England. There are several
collections of houses on this river bank, the inhabitants of which
would consider it an insult if they should hear such a humble term as
“village” applied to their pseudo towns and cities.

[62] “North America; its Agriculture and Climate,” p. 290.

[63] It was not long since estimated in the Legislature of Kentucky as
seven to one in that State.

[64] I fear that it must be confessed that this general rule has now
a multitude of exceptions in our large towns, where, in New York,
especially, we seem taking some pains to form a permanent lower class.
With the present great and apparently permanent falling off in the
European emigration it can hardly last, however.

[65] The ratio of white illiterate to white population, per cent., as
returned, is,

     {Free States,    3.36
     {Slave States    8.27

of the native population, over twenty years old, it is,

     {Free States,     4.12
     {Slave States    17.23

(Census Compendium, pp. 152, 153). The ability to merely read and write
may itself be of little value, but the fact of a child’s having had the
painstaking necessary to so far instruct him is in some degree a means
of measuring his other inherited wealth, and thus his breeding.

[66] “Resources,” vol. ii., pp. 197, 198.

[67] The late Mr. Brooks’ character should be honestly considered, now
that personal enmity toward him is impossible. That he was courteous,
accomplished, warm-hearted, and hot-blooded, dear as a friend and
fearful as an enemy, may be believed by all; but, in the South, his
name is yet never mentioned without the term gallant or courageous,
spirited or noble, is also attached to it; and we are obliged to ask,
why insist on this? The truth is, we include a habit of mind in these
terms which slavery has rendered, in a great degree, obsolete in the
South. The man who has been accustomed from childhood to see men beaten
when they have no chance to defend themselves; to hear men accused,
reproved, vituperated, who dare not open their lips in self-defence or
reply; the man who is accustomed to see other men whip women without
interference, remonstrance, or any expression of indignation, must have
a certain quality, which is an essential part of personal honour with
us, greatly blunted, if not entirely destroyed. The same quality which
we detest in the assassination of an enemy, is essentially constant
in all slavery. It is found in effecting one’s will with another,
when he cannot, if he would, defend himself. Accustomed to this in
every hour of their lives. Southerners do not feel magnanimity and the
“fair-play” impulse to be a necessary part of the quality of “spirit,”
courage, and nobleness. By spirit they apparently mean only passionate
vindictiveness of character, and by gallantry mere intrepidity.

[68] From the Introduction to “The Englishman in Kansas,” (by the
author of this work).

[69] That slaves have ever been burned alive has been indignantly
denied. The late Judge Jay told me that he had evidence in his
possession of negro burnings every year in the last twenty.

[70] 2 Devereaux’s North Carolina Reports, 263.

[71] The real object of the systematic mail robbery which is maintained
throughout the South, and of the censorship of the press which is
otherwise attempted, was once betrayed by a somewhat distinguished
Southern editor, Duff Green, in the _United States Telegraph_, in the
following words:—

“The real danger of this [slave insurrection] is remote. We believe we
have most to fear from the organized action upon the consciences and
fears of the slaveholders themselves; from the insinuation of their
dangerous heresies into our schools, our pulpits, and our domestic
circles. It is only by alarming the consciences of the weak and feeble,
and diffusing among our people a morbid sensibility on the question of
slavery, that the Abolitionists can accomplish their object.”

[72] Elsewhere the Messrs. Appleton are spoken of as “the great
Abolition publishers of New York.”

[73] Note the argument, I pray you, reader. Why, indeed? Why is there
not a Feejee Iliad? Are not the Feejees heathen, as Homer was? Why
should not the Book of Mormon be as good a thing as the Psalms of
David? Was not Joseph Smith also a polygamist?

[74] From the _Columbia_ (S. C.) _Times_, quoted without dissent in the
conservative South Carolina paper, the _Charleston Mercury_:—

“The loss that the South annually sustains by the running of slaves
into Canada, is of sufficient importance to justify her public men in
insisting upon some action of the Government of the United States in
the premises. And we confess our surprise that Southern statesmen have
submitted with so much patience to the annual robbery of thousands of
dollars’ worth of property to which she has as good a right as the
land they cultivate. The time is propitious for the acquisition of all
disputed rights from European powers. They cannot afford to break just
now with the United States. Let our public men move in the matter, and
we question not but that the President and the American Minister at
St. James’s will give the movement a cordial support. Besides, this is
a golden moment which may never return. Before we get another sound
man in the presidential chair, peace may be made in Europe, and the
European powers be less inclined to look with favour upon the demands
of America.”

[75] “While it is far more obvious that negroes should be slaves
than whites, for they are only fit to labour, not to direct; yet
the principle of slavery is itself right, and does not depend upon
difference of complexion. Difference of race, lineage, of language, of
habits, and customs, all tend to render the institution more natural
and durable; and although slaves have been generally whites, still the
masters and slaves have generally been of different national descent.
Moses and Aristotle, the earliest historians, are both authorities
in favour of this difference of race, but not of colour.”—_Richmond
Enquirer._

[76] Abstract of the Seventh Census, and the able work of Professor
Tucker, on the “Progress of the United States in Population and Wealth.”

[77] The population, following Mr. White, is given in round numbers,
from the State Census of 1845; average personal estate, per family of
citizens, reckoned from an official return, published in the “Soil of
the South” (Columbus, Georgia, 1852, p. 210), the amount given for each
county being divided by one-fifth the number of its population (for
families). Observations on education and the character of the people,
from “White’s Statistics of Georgia” (generally in quotations). School,
library, and church statistics, in figures from official United States
Census, 1850.

[78] The presence of these few planters, with their valuable human
property, makes the average nominal wealth of each white family, at
first sight, appear large. If, however, the slaves had been appraised
at only $500 each, which would be low, they would alone amount in value
in some counties to the sum assigned for the whole personal property
of the citizens. This item is not, therefore, trustworthy, but, in
comparing the coast and second tier counties, it serves to show the
great difference in the average wealth of the citizens of each. A
similar division of personal estate, as officially returned for the
city of New York, would give $4,660 to each family.

[79] “White’s Statistics,” p. 224.

[80] Hewitt, —; “Seaboard Slave States,” p. 528.




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