Early in March, my seine being now completed, my master told me I must
take with me three other black men, and go to the river to clear out a
fishery. This task was a disagreeable job, for it was nothing less than
dragging out of the river all the old trees and brush that had sunk to
the bottom, within the limits of our intended fishing ground.
My master's eldest son had been down the river, and had purchased two
boats, to be used at the fishery; but when I saw them, I declared them
to be totally unfit for that purpose. They were old batteaux, and so
leaky that they would not have supported the weight of a seine and the
men necessary to lay it out. I advised the building of two good canoes
from some of the large yellow pines in the woods. My advice was
accepted, and together with five others hands, I went to work at the
canoes, which we completed in less than a week.
So far things went pretty well, and I flattered myself that I should
become the head man at this new fishery, and have the command of the
other hands. I also expected that I should be able to gain some
advantage to myself, by disposing of a part of the small fish that might
be taken at the fishery. I reckoned without my host.
My master had only purchased this place a short time before he bought
me. Before that time he did not own any place on the river, fit for the
establishment of a fishery. His lands adjoined the river for more than a
mile in extent, along its margin; but an impassable morass separated the
channel of the river, from the firm ground, all along his lines. He had
cleared the highest parts of this morass, or swamp, and had here made
his rice fields; but he was as entirely cut off from the river, as if an
ocean had separated it from him.
On the day that we launched the canoes into the river, and while we were
engaged in removing some snags and old trees that had stuck in the mud,
near the shore, an ill-looking stranger came to us, and told us that our
master had sent him to take charge of the fishery, and superintend all
the work that was to be done at it. This man, by his contract with my
master, was to receive a part of all the fish caught, in lieu of wages;
and was invested with the same authority over us that was exercised by
the overseer in the cotton field.
I soon found that I had cause to regret my removal from the plantation.
It was found quite impossible to remove the old logs, and other rubbish
from the bottom of the river, without going into the water, and
wrenching them from their places with long handspikes. In performing
this work we were obliged to wade up to our shoulders, and often to dip
our very heads under water, in raising the sunken timber. However,
within less than a week, we had cleared the ground, and now began to
haul our seine. At first, we caught nothing but common river fish; but
after two or three days, we began to take shad. Of the common fish, such
as pike, perch, suckers, and others, we had the liberty of keeping as
many as we could eat; but the misfortune was, that we had no pork, or
fat of any kind, to fry them with; and for several days we contented
ourselves with boiling them on the coals, and eating them with our corn
bread and sweet potatoes. We could have lived well, if we had been
permitted to boil the shad on the coals, and eat them; for a fat shad
will dress itself in being broiled, and is very good, without any oily
substance added to it.
All the shad that we caught, were carefully taken away by a black man,
who came three times every day to the fishery, with a cart.
The master of the fishery had a family that lived several miles up the
river. In the summer time, he fished with hooks, and small nets, when
not engaged in running turpentine, in the pine woods. In the winter he
went back into the pine forest, and made tar of the dead pine trees; but
returned to the river at the opening of the spring, to take advantage of
the shad fishery. He was supposed to be one of the most skillful
fishermen on the Congrace river, and my master employed him to
superintend his new fishery, under an expectation, I presume, that as he
was to get a tenth part of all the fish that might be caught, he would
make the most of his situation. My master had not calculated with
accuracy the force of habit, nor the difficulty which men experience, in
conducting very simple affairs, of which they have no practical
knowledge.
The fish-master did very well for the interest of his employer for a few
days; compelling us to work in hauling the seine, day and night, and
scarcely permitting us to take rest enough to obtain necessary sleep. We
were compelled to work full sixteen hours every day, including Sunday;
for in the fishing season no respect is paid to Sunday by fishermen
anywhere. We had our usual quantity of bread and potatoes, with plenty
of common fish; but no shad came to our lot, nor had we anything to fry
our fish with. A broiled fresh-water fish is not very good at best,
without salt or oil; and after we had eaten them every day, for a week,
we cared very little for them.
By this time our fish-master began to relax in his discipline; not that
he became more kind to us, or required us to do less work, but to compel
us to work all night, it was necessary for him to sit up all night and
watch us. This was a degree of toil and privation to which he could not
long submit; and one evening soon after dark, he called me to him, and
told me that he intended to make me overseer of the fishery that night;
and he had no doubt I would keep the hands at work, and attend to the
business as well without him as with him. He then went into his cabin,
and went to bed; whilst I went and laid out the seine, and made a very
good haul. We took more than two hundred shad at this draught; and
followed up our work with great industry all night, only taking time to
eat our accustomed meal at midnight.
Every fisherman knows that the night is the best time for taking shad;
and the little rest that had been allowed us, since we began to fish,
had always been from eight o'clock in the morning until four in the
afternoon; unless within that period there was an appearance of a school
of fish in the river; when we had to rise, and lay out the seine, no
matter at what hour of the day. The fish-master had been very severe
with the hands since he came amongst us, and had made very free use of
a long hickory gad that he sometimes carried about with him; though at
times he would relax his austerity, and talk quite familiarly with
us,--especially with me, whom he perceived to have some knowledge of the
business in which we were engaged. The truth was, that this man knew
nothing of fishing with a seine, and I had been obliged from the
beginning to direct the operations of laying out and drawing in the
seine; though the master was always very loud and boisterous in giving
his commands, and directing us in what part of the river we should let
down the seine.
Having never been accustomed to regular work, or to the pursuit of any
constant course of personal application, the master was incapable of
long continued exertion; and I feel certain that he could not have been
prevailed upon to labor twelve hours each day, for a year, if in return
he had been certain of receiving ten thousand dollars. Notwithstanding
this, he was capable of rousing himself, and of undergoing any degree of
fatigue or privation for a short time, even for a few days. He had not
been trained to habits of industry, and could not bear the restraints of
uniform labor.
We worked hard all night, the first night of my superintendence, and
when the sun rose the next morning, the master had not risen from his
bed. As it was now the usual time of dividing the fish, I called to him
to come and see this business fairly done; but as he did not come down
immediately to the landing, I proceeded to make the division myself, in
as equitable a manner as I could: giving, however, a full share of large
fish to the master. When he came down to us, and overlooked both the
piles of fish--his own and that of my master--he was so well satisfied
with what I had done, that he said, if he had known that I would do so
well for him, he would not have risen. I was glad to hear this, as it
led me to hope that I should be able to induce him to stay in his cabin
during the greater part of the time; to do which, I was well assured, he
felt disposed.
When the night came, the master again told me he should go to bed, not
being well, and desired me to do as I had done the night before. This
night we cooked as many shad as we could all eat; but were careful to
carry, far out into the river, the scales and entrails of the stolen
fish. In the morning I made a division of the fish before I called the
master, and then went and asked him to come and see what I had done. He
was again well pleased, and now proposed to us all that if we would not
let the affair be known to our master, he would leave us to manage the
fishery at night according to our discretion. To this proposal we all
readily agreed, and I received authority to keep the other hands at
work, until the master would go and get his breakfast. I had now
accomplished the object that I had held very near my heart ever since we
began to fish at this place.
From this time to the end of the fishing season, we all lived well, and
did not perform more work than we were able to bear. I was in no fear of
being punished by the fish-master, for he was now at least as much in my
power as I was in his; for if my master had known the agreement that he
had made with us, for the purpose of enabling himself to sleep all night
in his cabin, he would have been deprived of his situation, and all the
profits of his share of the fishery.
There never can be any affinity of feeling between master and slave,
except in some few isolated cases, where the master has treated his
slave in such a manner as to have excited in him strong feelings of
gratitude; or where the slave entertains apprehensions, that by the
death of his master, or by being separated from him in any other way, he
may fall under the power of a more tyrannical ruler, or may in some
shape be worsted by the change. I was never acquainted with a slave who
believed that he violated any rule of morality by appropriating to
himself any thing that belonged to his master, if it was necessary to
his comfort. The master might call it theft, and brand it with the name
of crime; but the slave reasoned differently, when he took a portion of
his master's goods, to satisfy his hunger, keep himself warm, or to
gratify his passion for luxurious enjoyment.
The slave sees his master residing in a spacious mansion, riding in a
fine carriage, and dressed in costly clothes, and attributes the
possession of all these enjoyments to his own labor; whilst he who is
the cause of so much gratification and pleasure to another, is himself
deprived of even the necessary accommodations of human life. Ignorant
men do not and cannot reason logically; and in tracing things from cause
to effect, the slave attributes all that he sees in possession of his
master to his own toil, without taking the trouble to examine how far
the skill, judgment, and economy of his master may have contributed to
the accumulation of the wealth by which his residence is surrounded.
There is, in fact, a mutual dependence between the master and his slave.
The former could not acquire any thing without the labor of the latter,
and the latter would always remain in poverty without the judgment of
the former in directing labor to a definite and profitable result.
After I had obtained the virtual command of the fishery, I was careful
to awaken the master every morning at sunrise, that he might be present
when the division of the fish was made; and when the morning cart
arrived, that the carter might not report to my master, that the
fish-master was in bed. I had now become interested in preserving the
good opinion of my master in favor of his agent.
Since my arrival in Carolina I had never enjoyed a full meal of bacon;
and now determined, if possible, to procure such a supply of that luxury
as would enable me and all my fellow-slaves at the fishery to regale
ourselves at pleasure. At this season of the year boats frequently
passed up the river, laden with merchandise and goods of various kinds,
among which were generally large quantities of salt, intended for curing
fish, and for other purposes on the plantations. These boats also
carried bacon and salted pork up the river, for sale; but as they never
moved at night, confining their navigation to day-light, and as none of
them had hitherto stopped near our landing, we had not met with an
opportunity of entering into a traffic with any of the boat masters. We
were not always to be so unfortunate. One evening, in the second week of
the fishing season, a large keel-boat was seen working up the river
about sundown; and shortly after, came to for the night, on the opposite
side of the river, directly against our landing. We had at the fishery a
small canoe called a punt, about twelve feet long; and when we went to
lay out the seine, for the first haul after night, I attached the punt
to the side of the canoe, and when we had finished letting down the
seine, I left the other hands to work it toward the shore, and ran over
in the punt to the keel-boat. Upon inquiring of the captain if he had
any bacon that he would exchange for shad, he said, he had a little;
but, as the risk he would run in dealing with a slave was great, I must
expect to pay him more than the usual price. He at length proposed to
give me a hundred pounds of bacon for three hundred shad. This was at
least twice as much as the bacon was worth; but we did not bargain as
men generally do, where half of the bargain is on each side; for here
the captain of the keel-boat settled the terms for both parties.
However, he ran the hazard of being prosecuted for dealing with slaves,
which is a very high offence in Carolina; and I was selling that which,
in point of law, did not belong to me; but to which, nevertheless, I
felt in my conscience that I had a better right than any other person.
In support of the right, which I felt to be on my side in this case,
came a keen appetite for the bacon, which settled the controversy, upon
the question of the morality of this traffic, in my favor. It so
happened, that we made a good haul with our seine this evening, and at
the time I returned to the landing, the men were all on shore, engaged
in drawing in the seine. As soon as we had taken out the fish, we placed
three hundred of them in one of our canoes, and pushed over to the
keel-boat, where the fish were counted out, and the bacon was received
into our craft with all possible despatch. One part of this small trade
exhibited a trait of human character which I think worthy of being
noticed. The captain of the boat was a middle-aged, thin, sallow man,
with long bushy hair; and he looked like one who valued the opinions of
men but little. I expected that he would not be scrupulous in giving me
my full hundred pounds of bacon: but in this I was mistaken; for he
weighed the flitches with great exactness, in a pair of large
steelyards, and gave me good weight. When the business was ended, and
the bacon in my canoe, he told me, he hoped I was satisfied with him;
and assured me, that I should find the bacon excellent. When I was about
pushing from the boat, he told me in a low voice, though there was no
one who could hear us, except his own people--that he should be down the
river again in about two weeks, when he should be very glad to buy any
produce that I had for sale; adding, "I will give you half as much for
cotton as it is worth in Charleston, and pay you either in money or
groceries, as you may choose. Take care, and do not betray yourself, and
I shall be honest with you."
I was so much rejoiced at being in possession of a hundred pounds of
good flitch bacon, that I had no room in either my head or my heart for
the consideration of this man's notions of honesty, at the present
time; but paddled with all strength for our landing, where we took the
bacon from the canoe, stowed it away in an old salt barrel, and safely
deposited it in a hole dug for the purpose in the floor of my cabin.
About this time, our allowance of sweet potatoes was withheld from us
altogether, in consequence of the high price paid for this article by
the captains of the keel-boats; for the purpose, as I heard, of sending
them to New York and Philadelphia. Ever since Christmas we had been
permitted to draw, on each Sunday evening, either a peck of corn, as
usual, or half a peck of corn and half a bushel of sweet potatoes, at
our discretion. The half a peck of corn and the half a bushel of
potatoes was worth much more than a peck of corn; but potatoes were so
abundant this year, that they were of little value, and the saving of
corn was an object worth attending to by a large planter. The boatmen
now offered half a dollar a bushel for potatoes, and we were again
restricted to our corn ration.
Notwithstanding the privation of our potatoes, we at the fishery lived
sumptuously, although our master certainly believed that our fare
consisted of corn-bread and river fish, cooked without lard or butter.
It was necessary to be exceedingly cautious in the use of our bacon; and
to prevent the suspicions of the master and others who frequented our
landing, I enjoined our people never to fry any of the meat, but to
boil it all. No one can smell boiled bacon far; but fried flitch can be
smelled a mile by a good nose.
We had two meals every night, one of bacon and the other of fried shad,
which nearly deprived us of all appetite for the breakfasts and dinners
that we prepared in the daytime; consisting of cold corn-bread without
salt, and broiled fresh water fish, without any sort of seasoning. We
spent more than two weeks in this happy mode of life, unmolested by our
master, his son, or the master of the fishery; except when the latter
complained, rather than threatened us, because we sometimes suffered our
seine to float too far down the river, and get entangled among some
roots and brush that lay on the bottom, immediately below our fishing
ground. We now expected, every evening, to see the return of the boatman
who had sold us the bacon, and the man who was with me in the canoe at
the time we received it, had not forgotten the invitation of the captain
to trade with him in cotton on his return. My fellow-slave was a native
of Virginia, as he told me, and had been sold and brought to Carolina
about ten years before this time. He was a good-natured, kind-hearted
man, and did many acts of benevolence to me, such as one slave is able
to perform for another, and I felt a real affection for him; but he had
adopted the too common rule of moral action, that there is no harm in a
slave robbing his master.
The reader may suppose, from my account of the bacon, that I, too, had
adopted this rule as a part of my creed; but I solemnly declare, that
this was not the case, and that I never deprived any one of all the
masters that I have served, of anything against his consent, unless it
was some kind of food; and that of all I ever took, I am confident, I
have given away more than the half to my fellow-slaves, whom I knew to
be equally needy with myself.
The man who had been with me at the keel-boat told me one day, that he
had laid a plan by which we could get thirty or forty dollars, if I
would join him in the execution of his project. Thirty or forty dollars
was a large sum of money to me. I had never possessed so much money at
one time in my life; and I told him that I was willing to do anything by
which we could obtain such a treasure. He then told me, that he knew
where the mule and cart, that were used by the man who carried away our
fish, were kept at night; and that he intended to set out on the first
dark night, and go to the plantation--harness the mule to the cart--go
to the cotton-gin house--put two bags of cotton into the cart--bring
them to a thicket of small pines that grew on the river bank, a short
distance below the fishery, and leave them there until the keel-boat
should return. All that he desired of me was, to make some excuse for
his absence, to the other hands, and assist him to get his cotton into
the canoe, at the coming of the boat.
I disliked the whole scheme, both on account of its iniquity and of the
danger which attended it; but my companion was not to be discouraged by
all the arguments which I could use against it, and said, if I would not
participate in it, he was determined to undertake it alone: provided I
would not inform against him. To this I said nothing; but he had so
often heard me express my detestation of one slave betraying another,
that I presume he felt easy on that score. The next night but one after
this conversation was very dark, and when we went to lay out the seine
after night, Nero was missing. The other people inquired of me if I knew
where he was, and when I replied in the negative, little more was said
on the subject; it being common for the slaves to absent themselves from
their habitations at night, and if the matter is not discovered by the
overseer or master, nothing is ever said of it by the slaves. The other
people supposed that, in this instance, Nero had gone to see a woman
whom he lived with as his wife, on a plantation a few miles down the
river; and were willing to work a little harder to permit him to enjoy
the pleasure of seeing his family. He returned before day, and said he
had been to see his wife, which satisfied the curiosity of our
companions. The very next evening after Nero's absence, the keel-boat
descended the river, came down on our side, hailed us at the fishery,
and, drawing in to the shore below our landing, made her ropes fast
among the young pines of which I have spoken above. After we made our
first haul, I missed Nero; but he returned to us before we had laid out
the seine, and told us that he had been in the woods to collect some
_light-wood_--dry, resinous pine--which he brought on his shoulder. When
the morning came, the keel-boat was gone, and every thing wore the
ordinary aspect about our fishery; but when the man came with the mule
and the cart to take away the fish, he told us that there was great
trouble on the plantation. The overseer had discovered that some one had
stolen two bags of cotton the last night, and all the hands were
undergoing an examination on the subject. The slaves on the plantation,
one and all, denied having any knowledge of the matter, and, as there
was no evidence against any one, the overseer threatened, at the time he
left the quarter, to whip every hand on the estate, for the purpose of
making them discover who the thief was.
The slaves on the plantation differed in opinion as to the perpetrator
of this theft; but the greater number concurred in charging it upon a
free negro man, named Ishmael, who lived in a place called the White Oak
Woods, and followed making ploughs and harrow frames. He also made
handles for hoes, and the frame work of cart bodies.
This man was generally reputed a thief for a great distance round the
country, and the black people charged him with stealing the cotton on no
other evidence than his general bad character. The overseer, on the
other hand, expressed his opinion without hesitation, which was, that
the cotton had been stolen by some of the people of the plantation, and
sold to a poor white man, who resided at the distance of three miles
back in the pine woods, and was believed to have dealt with slaves, as a
receiver of their stolen goods, for many years.
This white man was one of a class of poor cottagers. The house, or
cabin, in which he resided, was built of small poles of the yellow pine,
with the bark remaining on them; the roof was of clap-boards of pine,
and the chimney was made of sticks and mud, raised to the height of
eight or ten feet. The appearance of the man and his wife was such as
one might expect to find in such a dwelling. The lowest poverty had,
through life, been the companion of these poor people, of which their
clayey complexions, haggard figures, and tattered garments gave the
strongest proof. It appeared to me that the state of destitution in
which these people lived, afforded very convincing evidence that they
were not in possession of the proceeds of the stolen goods of any
person. I had often been at the cabin of this man in my trapping
expeditions, the previous autumn and winter; and I believe the overseer
regarded the circumstance, that black people often called at his house,
as conclusive evidence that he held criminal intercourse with them.
However this might be, the overseer determined to search the premises of
this harmless forester, whom he resolved, beforehand, to treat as a
guilty man.
It being known that I was well acquainted with the woods in the
neighborhood of the cabin, I was sent for, to leave the fishery, and
come to assist in making search for the lost bags of cotton--perhaps it
was also believed that I was in the secrets of the suspected house. It
was not thought prudent to trust any of the hands on the plantation in
making the intended search, as they were considered the principal
thieves; whilst we, of the fishery, against whom no suspicion had
arisen, were required to give our assistance in ferreting out the
perpetrators of an offence of the highest grade that can be committed by
a slave on a cotton estate.
Before leaving the fishery, I advised the master to be very careful not
to let the overseer, or my master know, that he had left us to manage
the fishery at night, by ourselves; since, as a theft had been
committed, it might possibly be charged upon him, if it were known that
he had allowed us so much liberty. I said this to put the master on his
guard against surprise; and to prevent him from saying anything that
might turn the attention of the overseer to the hands at the fishery;
for I knew that if punishment were to fall amongst us, it would be quite
as likely to reach the innocent as the guilty--besides, though I was
innocent of the bags of cotton, I was guilty of the bacon, and, however
I might make distinctions between the moral turpitude of the two cases,
I knew that if discovered, they would both be treated alike.
When I arrived at the quarter, whither I repaired, in obedience to the
orders I received, I found the overseer with my master's eldest son, and
a young white man, who had been employed to repair the cotton-gin,
waiting for me. I observed when I came near the overseer, that he looked
at me very attentively, and afterwards called my young master aside, and
spoke to him in a tone of voice too low to be heard by me. The white
gentlemen then mounted their horses, and set off by the road for the
cabin of the white man. I had orders to take a short route, through the
woods and across a swamp, by which I could reach the cabin as soon as
the overseer.
The attentive examination that the overseer had given me, caused me to
feel uneasy, although I could not divine the cause of his scrutiny, nor
of the subject of the short conversation between him and my young
master. By traveling at a rapid pace, I arrived at the cabin of the
suspected man before the gentlemen, but thought it prudent not to
approach it before they came up, lest it might be imagined that I had
gone in to give information to the occupants of the danger that
threatened them.
Here I had a hard struggle with my conscience, which seemed to say to
me, that I ought at once to disclose all I knew concerning the lost bags
of cotton, for the purpose of saving these poor people from the terror
that they must necessarily feel at the sight of those who were coming to
accuse them of a great crime, perhaps from the afflictions and
sufferings attendant upon a prosecution in a court of justice. These
reflections were cut short by the arrival of the party of gentlemen, who
passed me where I sat, at the side of the path, with no other notice
than a simple command of the overseer to come on. I followed them into
the cabin, where we found the man and his wife, with two little
children, eating roasted potatoes.
The overseer saluted this family by telling them that we had come to
search the house for stolen cotton. That it was well known that he had
long been dealing with negroes, and they were now determined to bring
him to punishment. I was then ordered to tear up the floor of the cabin,
whilst the overseer mounted into the loft. I found nothing under the
floor, and the overseer had no better success above. The wife was then
advised to confess where her husband had concealed the cotton, to save
herself from being brought in as a party to the affair; but this poor
woman protested with tears that they were totally ignorant of the whole
matter. Whilst the wife was interrogated, the father stood without his
own door, trembling with fear, but, as I could perceive, indignant with
rage.
The overseer, who was fluent in the use of profane language, exerted the
highest degree of his vulgar eloquence upon these harmless people, whose
only crime was their poverty, and whose weakness alone had invited the
ruthless aggression of their powerful and rich neighbors.
Finding nothing in the house, the gentlemen set out to scour the woods
around the cabin, and commanded me to take the lead in tracing out tree
tops and thickets, where it was most likely that the stolen cotton might
be found. Our search was in vain, as I knew it would be beforehand; but
when weary of ranging in the woods, the gentlemen again returned to the
cabin, which we now found without inhabitants. The alarm caused by our
visit, and the manner in which the gentlemen had treated this lonely
family, had caused them to abandon their dwelling, and seek safety in
flight. The door of the house was closed and fastened with a string to
a nail in the post of the door. After calling several times for the
fugitives, and receiving no answer, the door was kicked open by my young
master; the few articles of miserable furniture that the cabin
contained, including a bed, made of flags, were thrown into a heap in
the corner, and fire was set to the dwelling by the overseer.
We remained until the flames had reached the roof of the cabin, when the
gentlemen mounted their horses and set off for home, ordering me to
return by the way that I had come. When we again reached the house of my
master, several gentlemen of the neighborhood had assembled, drawn
together by common interest that is felt amongst the planters to punish
theft, and particularly a theft of cotton in the bag. My young master
related to his neighbors, with great apparent satisfaction, the exploits
of the morning; said he had routed one receiver of stolen goods out of
the country, and that all others of his character ought to be dealt with
in the same manner. In this opinion all the gentlemen present concurred,
and after much conversation on the subject, it was agreed to call a
general meeting for the purpose of devising the best, surest and most
peaceful method of removing from the country the many white men who,
residing in the district without property, or without interest in
preserving the morals of the slaves, were believed to carry on an
unlawful and criminal traffic with the negroes, to the great injury of
the planters in general, and of the masters of the slaves who dealt with
the offenders in particular.
I was present at this preliminary consultation, which took place at my
master's cotton-gin, whither the gentlemen had repaired for the purpose
of looking at the place where the cotton had been removed. So many cases
of this forbidden traffic between the slaves and these "white negro
dealers," as they were termed, were here related by the different
gentlemen, and so many white men were referred to by name as being
concerned in this criminal business, that I began to suppose the losses
of the planters in this way must be immense. This conference continued
until I had totally forgotten the scrutinizing look that I had received
from our overseer at the time I came up from the fishery in the morning;
but the period had now come when I again was to be reminded of this
circumstance, for on a sudden the overseer called me to come forward and
let the gentlemen see me. I again felt a sort of vague and undefinable
apprehension that no good was to grow out of this examination of my
person, but a command of our overseer was not to be disobeyed. After
looking at my face, with a kind of leer or side glance, one of the
gentlemen, who was an entire stranger to me, and whom I had never before
seen, said, "Boy, you appear to live well; how much meat does your
master allow you in a week?" I was almost totally confounded at the name
of meat, and felt the blood rush to my heart, but nevertheless forced a
sort of smile upon my face, and replied, "My master has been very kind
to all his people of late, but has not allowed us any meat for some
weeks. We have plenty of good bread, and abundance of river fish, which,
together with the heads and roes of the shad that we have salted at the
landing, makes a very excellent living for us; though if master would
please to give us a little meat now and then, we should be very thankful
for it."
This speech, which contained all the eloquence I was master of at the
time, seemed to produce some effect in my favor, for the gentleman said
nothing in reply, until the overseer, rising from a board on which he
had been sitting, came close up to me and said, "Charles, you need not
tell lies about it; you have been eating meat, I know you have, no negro
could look as fat, and sleek, and black, and greasy, as you, if he had
nothing to eat but corn bread and river chubs. You do not look at all as
you did before you went to the fishery; and all the hands on the
plantation have had as many chubs and other river fish as they could
eat, as well as you, and yet they are as poor as snakes in comparison
with you. Come, tell the truth, let us know where you get the meat that
you have been eating, and you shall not be whipped." I begged the
overseer and the other gentlemen not to ridicule or make sport of me,
because I was a poor slave, and was obliged to live on bread and fresh
water fish; and concluded this second harangue by expressing my
thankfulness to God Almighty, for giving me such good health and
strength as to enable me to do my work, and look so well as I did upon
such poor fare; adding, that if I only had as much bacon as I could eat,
they would soon see a man of a different appearance from that which I
now exhibited. "None of your palaver," rejoined the overseer--"Why, I
smell the meat in you this moment. Do I not see the grease as it runs
out of your face?" I was by this time in a profuse sweat, caused by the
anxiety of my feelings, and simply said, "Master sees me sweat, I
suppose."
All the gentlemen present then declared, with one accord, that I must
have been living on meat for a long time, as no negro, who had no meat
to eat, could look as I did; and one of the company advised the overseer
to whip me, and compel me to confess the truth. I have no doubt but this
advice would have been practically followed, had it not been for a happy
though dangerous suggestion of my own mind, at this moment. It was no
other than a proposal on my part, that I should be taken to the landing,
and if all the people there did not look as well and as much like
meat-eaters as I did, then I would agree to be whipped in any way the
gentlemen should deem expedient. This offer on my part was instantly
accepted by the gentlemen, and it was agreed among them that they would
all go to the landing with the overseer, partly for the purpose of
seeing me condemned by the judgment to which I had voluntarily chosen to
submit myself, and partly for the purpose of seeing my master's new
fishery.
We were quickly at the landing, though four miles distant; and I now
felt confident that I should escape the dangers that beset me, provided
the master of the fishery did not betray his own negligence and lead
himself, as well as others, into new troubles.
Though on foot, I was at the landing as soon as the gentlemen, and was
first to announce to the master the feats we had performed in the course
of the day, adding, with great emphasis, and even confidence in my
manner, "You know, master fish-master, whether we have had any meat to
eat here or not. If we had meat here, would not you see it? You have
been up with us every night, and know that we have not been allowed to
take even shad, let alone having meat to eat." The fish-master supported
me in all I said; declared we had been good boys--had worked night and
day, of his certain knowledge, as he had been with us all night and
every night since we began to fish. That he had not allowed us to eat
anything but fresh water fish, and the heads and roes of the shad that
were salted at the landing. As to meat, he said he was willing to be
qualified on a cart-load of Testaments that there had not been a pound
at the landing since the commencement of the season, except that which
he had in his own cabin. I had now acquired confidence, and desired the
gentlemen to look at Nero and the other hands, all of whom has as much
the appearance of bacon eaters as myself. This was the truth, especially
with regard to one of the men, who was much fatter than I was.
The gentlemen now began to doubt the evidence of their own senses, which
they had held infallible heretofore. I showed the fine fish that we had
to eat; cat, perch, mullets, and especially two large pikes, that had
been caught to-day, and assured them that upon such fare as this, men
must needs get fat. I now perceived that victory was with me for once.
All the gentlemen faltered, hesitated, and began to talk of other
affairs, except the overseer, who still ran about the landing, swearing
and scratching his head, and saying it was strange that we were so fat,
whilst the hands on the plantation were as lean as sand-hill cranes. He
was obliged to give the affair over. He was no longer supported by my
young master and his companions, all of whom congratulated themselves
upon a discovery so useful and valuable to the planting interest; and
all determined to provide, as soon as possible, a proper supply of fresh
river fish for their hands.
The two bales of cotton were never once named, and, I suppose, were not
thought of by the gentlemen, when at the landing; and this was well for
Nero; for such was the consternation and terror into which he was thrown
by the presence of the gentlemen, and their inquiries concerning our
eating of meat, that the sweat rolled off him like rain from the plant
_neverwet_; his countenance was wild and haggard, and his knees shook
like the wooden spring of a wheat-fan. I believe, that if they had
charged him at once with stealing the cotton, he would have confessed
the deed.