In spite of the many restrictions that hedged the slaves about there
were many good times on the plantation. Old Mary of the Roof plantation
described their frolics thus:
"We would sing and there was always a fiddle. I never could put up to
dance much but nobody could beat me runnin' 'Peep Squirrel'. That was a
game we made up on the plantation. The girls peeped out, then ran by the
men, and they'd be caught and twirled around. They said I was like a
kildee bird, I was so little and could run so fast. When we growed up we
walked the boys to death! They used to say we walked the heels off their
boots. We would have dances every Christmas, on different plantations. I
tell my grandchildren sometimes that my brother-in-law would carry us to
dances and wouldn' allow us to sleep, we'd dance all night long. We had
a good time, us girls!"
When the negroes got married long tables were set under the trees in the
back yard and the people from the big house came down to see how the
slaves were dressed and to wish them well.
Concerning her own marriage Mary said, "They say I was married when I
was 17 years old. I know it was after freedom. I married a boy who
belonged to the Childs plantation. I had the finest kind of marrying
dress, my father bought it for me. It had great big grapes hanging down
from the sleeves and around the skirt." She sighed and a shadow passed
over her placid old face, as she added, "I wish't I had a kep' it for my
children to saw."
A slave from the Starling Freeman plantation in South Carolina said,
"When cullud people wus married, white people give a supper. A cullud
man whut lives on de place marries 'em."
"I used to sing good myself," continued Susannah, "you could hear the
echo of my voice way out yonder, but I can't sing no more." Here
Susannah stuck out her legs, covered with long-ribbed pink stockings.
"My legs got de misery in 'em now, and my voice gone. In my mother's
house dey never trained us to sing things like the mos' o' people. We
sung the good old hymns, like, 'A Charge to Keep I have, a God to
Glorify.'"
Old Tim, who used to live on a plantation in Virginia, said in speaking
of good times before the war, "Sho', we had plenty o' banjo pickers!
They was 'lowed to play banjos and guitars at night, if de Patterolas
didn' interfere. At home de owners wouldn' 'low de Patterolas to tech
their folks. We used to run mighty fast to git home after de frolics!
Patterolas wus a club of men who'd go around and catch slaves on strange
plantations and break up frolics, and whip 'em sometimes."
We asked Aunt Ellen Campbell, who was a slave on the Eve plantation in
Richmond County, about good times in slavery days. She laughed
delightedly and said, "When anybody gwine be married dey tell de boss
and he have a cake fix. Den when Sunday come, after dey be married she
put on de white dress she be married in and dey go up to town so de boss
can see de young couple."
She was thoughtful a moment, then continued, "Den sometimes on Sadday
night we have a big frolic. De nigger fum Hammond's place and Phinizy
place, Eve place, Clayton place, D'Laigle place, all git together fer a
big dance and frolic. A lot o' de young sports used to come dere and
push de young nigger bucks aside and dance wid de wenches."
"We used to have big parties sometime," said Fannie Fulcher, a former
slave on Dr. Miller's plantation in Burke County. "No white folks--jus'
de overseer come round to see how dey git erlong. I 'member dey have a
fiddle. I had a cousin who played fer frolics, and fer de white folks,
too."
According to Melinda Mitchell, who lived on the plantation of Rev. Allen
Dozier in Edgefield County, South Carolina, the field hands and house
servants forgot cares in merriment and dancing after the day's work was
over. When asked about her master, a Baptist preacher, condoning dancing
Melinda replied with the simple statement, "He wasn't only a preacher,
he was a religious man. De slaves danced at de house of a man who
'tended de stack, way off in de fiel' away fum de big house." They
danced to the tunes of banjos and a homemade instrument termed, "Quill",
evidently some kind of reed. It was fairly certain that the noise of
merriment must have been heard at the big house, but the slaves were not
interrupted in their frolic.
"My mammy wus de bes' dancer on de plantachun," Melinda said proudly.
"She could dance so sturdy she could balance a glass o' water on her
head an never spill a drop." She recalls watching the dancers late into
the night until she fell asleep.
She could tell of dances and good times in the big house as well as in
the quarters. The young ladies were belles. They were constantly
entertaining. One day a wandering fortune-teller came on the piazza
where a crowd of young people were gathered, and asked to tell the young
ladies' fortunes. Everything was satisfactory until he told Miss Nettie
she would marry a one-armed man. At this the young belle was so
indignant that the man was driven off and the dogs set on him. "But de
fortune teller told true-true," Melinda said. A faint ominous note crept
into her voice and her eyes seemed to be seeing events that had
transpired almost three-quarters of a century ago. "After de war Miss
Nettie did marry a one-arm man, like de fortune-teller said, a
Confederate officer, Captain Shelton, who had come back wid his sleeve
empty."