residence, is the hut of the head driver. Let me explain, by the way, his
office. The negroes, as I before told you, are divided into troops or
gangs, as they are called; at the head of each gang is a driver, who
stands over them, whip in hand, while they perform their daily task, who
renders an account of each individual slave and his work every evening to
the overseer, and receives from him directions for their next day's tasks.
Each driver is allowed to inflict a dozen lashes upon any refractory slave
in the field, and at the time of the offence; they may not, however,
extend the chastisement, and if it is found ineffectual, their remedy lies
in reporting the unmanageable individual either to the head driver or the
overseer; the former of whom has power to inflict three dozen lashes at
his own discretion, and the latter as many as he himself sees fit, within
the number of fifty; which limit, however, I must tell you, is an
arbitrary one on this plantation, appointed by the founder of the estate,
Major ----, Mr. ----'s grandfather, many of whose regulations, indeed I
believe most of them, are still observed in the government of the
plantation. Limits of this sort, however, to the power of either driver,
head driver, or overseer, may or may not exist elsewhere; they are, to a
certain degree, a check upon the power of these individuals; but in the
absence of the master, the overseer may confine himself within the limit
or not, as he chooses--and as for the master himself, where is his limit?
He may, if he likes, flog a slave to death, for the laws which pretend
that he may not are a mere pretence--inasmuch as the testimony of a black
is never taken against a white; and upon this plantation of ours, and a
thousand more, the overseer is the _only_ white man, so whence should come
the testimony to any crime of his? With regard to the oft-repeated
statement, that it is not the owner's interest to destroy his human
property, it answers nothing--the instances in which men, to gratify the
immediate impulse of passion, sacrifice not only their eternal, but their
evident, palpable, positive worldly interest, are infinite. Nothing is
commoner than for a man under the transient influence of anger to
disregard his worldly advantage; and the black slave, whose preservation
is indeed supposed to be his owner's interest, may be, will be, and is
occasionally sacrificed to the blind impulse of passion.
To return to our head driver, or, as he is familiarly called, head man,
Frank--he is second in authority only to the overseer, and exercises rule
alike over the drivers and the gangs, in the absence of the sovereign
white man from the estate, which happens whenever Mr. O---- visits the
other two plantations at Woodville and St. Simons. He is sole master and
governor of the island, appoints the work, pronounces punishments, gives
permission to the men to leave the island (without it they never may do
so), and exercises all functions of undisputed mastery over his fellow
slaves, for you will observe that all this while he is just as much a
slave as any of the rest. Trustworthy, upright, intelligent, he may be
flogged to-morrow if Mr. O---- or Mr. ---- so please it, and sold the next
day like a cart horse, at the will of the latter. Besides his various
other responsibilities, he has the key of all the stores, and gives out
the people's rations weekly; nor is it only the people's provisions that
are put under his charge--meat, which is only given out to them
occasionally, and provisions for the use of the family are also entrusted
to his care. Thus you see, among these _inferior_ creatures, their own
masters yet look to find, surviving all their best efforts to destroy
them--good sense, honesty, self-denial, and all the qualities, mental and
moral, that make one man worthy to be trusted by another. From the
imperceptible, but inevitable effect of the sympathies and influences of
human creatures towards and over each other, Frank's intelligence has
become uncommonly developed by intimate communion in the discharge of his
duty with the former overseer, a very intelligent man, who has only just
left the estate, after managing it for nineteen years; the effect of this
intercourse, and of the trust and responsibility laid upon the man, are
that he is clear-headed, well judging, active, intelligent, extremely well
mannered, and, being respected, he respects himself. He is as ignorant as
the rest of the slaves; but he is always clean and tidy in his person,
with a courteousness of demeanour far removed from servility, and exhibits
a strong instance of the intolerable and wicked injustice of the system
under which he lives, having advanced thus far towards improvement, in
spite of all the bars it puts to progress; and here being arrested, not by
want of energy, want of sense, or any want of his own, but by being held
as another man's property, who can only thus hold him by forbidding him
further improvement. When I see that man, who keeps himself a good deal
aloof from the rest, in his leisure hours looking, with a countenance of
deep thought, as I did to-day, over the broad river, which is to him as a
prison wall, to the fields and forest beyond, not one inch or branch of
which his utmost industry can conquer as his own, or acquire and leave an
independent heritage to his children, I marvel what the thoughts of such a
man may be. I was in his house to-day, and the same superiority in
cleanliness, comfort, and propriety exhibited itself in his dwelling, as
in his own personal appearance, and that of his wife--a most active,
trustworthy, excellent woman, daughter of the oldest, and probably most
highly respected of all Mr. ----'s slaves. To the excellent conduct of
this woman, and indeed every member of her family, both the present and
the last overseer bear unqualified testimony.
As I was returning towards the house, after my long morning's lounge, a
man rushed out of the blacksmith's shop, and catching me by the skirt of
my gown, poured forth a torrent of self-gratulations on having at length
found the 'right missis.' They have no idea, of course, of a white person
performing any of the offices of a servant, and as throughout the whole
Southern country the owner's children are nursed and tended, and sometimes
_suckled_ by their slaves (I wonder how this inferior milk agrees with the
lordly _white_ babies?) the appearance of M---- with my two children had
immediately suggested the idea that she must be the missis. Many of the
poor negroes flocked to her, paying their profound homage under this
impression; and when she explained to them that she was not their owner's
wife, the confusion in their minds seemed very great--Heaven only knows
whether they did not conclude that they had two mistresses, and Mr. ----
two wives; for the privileged race must seem, in their eyes, to have such
absolute masterdom on earth, that perhaps they thought polygamy might be
one of the sovereign white men's numerous indulgences. The ecstacy of the
blacksmith on discovering the 'right missis' at last was very funny, and
was expressed with such extraordinary grimaces, contortions, and
gesticulations, that I thought I should have died of laughing at this
rapturous identification of my most melancholy relation to the poor
fellow.
Having at length extricated myself from the group which forms round me
whenever I stop but for a few minutes, I pursued my voyage of discovery by
peeping into the kitchen garden. I dared do no more; the aspect of the
place would have rejoiced the very soul of Solomon's sluggard of old--a
few cabbages and weeds innumerable filled the neglected looking enclosure,
and I ventured no further than the entrance into its most uninviting
precincts. You are to understand that upon this swamp island of ours we
have quite a large stock of cattle, cows, sheep, pigs, and poultry in the
most enormous and inconvenient abundance. The cows are pretty miserably
off for pasture, the banks and pathways of the dykes being their only
grazing ground, which the sheep perambulate also, in earnest search of a
nibble of fresh herbage; both the cows and sheep are fed with rice flour
in great abundance, and are pretty often carried down for change of air
and more sufficient grazing to Hampton, Mr. ----'s estate, on the island
of St. Simons, fifteen miles from this place, further down the river--or
rather, indeed, I should say in the sea, for 'tis salt water all round,
and one end of the island has a noble beach open to the vast Atlantic. The
pigs thrive admirably here, and attain very great perfection of size and
flavour; the rice flour, upon which they are chiefly fed, tending to make
them very delicate. As for the poultry, it being one of the few privileges
of the poor blacks to raise as many as they can, their abundance is
literally a nuisance--ducks, fowls, pigeons, turkeys (the two latter
species, by the bye, are exclusively the master's property), cluck,
scream, gabble, gobble, crow, cackle, fight, fly, and flutter in all
directions, and to their immense concourse, and the perfect freedom with
which they intrude themselves even into the piazza of the house, the
pantry, and kitchen, I partly attribute the swarms of fleas, and other
still less agreeable vermin, with which we are most horribly pestered.
My walk lay to-day along the bank of a canal, which has been dug through
nearly the whole length of the island, to render more direct and easy the
transportation of the rice from one end of the estate to another, or from
the various distant fields to the principal mill at Settlement No. 1. It
is of considerable width and depth, and opens by various locks into the
river. It has, unfortunately, no trees on its banks, but a good footpath
renders it, in spite of that deficiency, about the best walk on the
island. I passed again to-day one of those beautiful evergreen thickets,
which I described to you in my last letter; it is called a reserve, and is
kept uncleared and uncultivated in its natural swampy condition, to allow
of the people's procuring their firewood from it. I cannot get accustomed,
so as to be indifferent to this exquisite natural ornamental growth, and
think, as I contemplate the various and beautiful foliage of these watery
woods, how many of our finest English parks and gardens owe their chiefest
adornments to plantations of these shrubs, procured at immense cost,
reared with infinite pains and care, which are here basking in the
winter's sunshine, waiting to be cut down for firewood! These little
groves are peopled with wild pigeons and birds, which they designate here
as blackbirds. These sometimes rise from the rice fields with a whirr of
multitudinous wings, that is almost startling, and positively overshadow
the ground beneath like a cloud.
I had a conversation that interested me a good deal, during my walk
to-day, with my peculiar slave Jack. This lad, whom Mr. ---- has appointed
to attend me in my roamings about the island, and rowing expeditions on
the river, is the son of the last head driver, a man of very extraordinary
intelligence and faithfulness--such, at least, is the account given of him
by his employers (in the burial-ground of the negroes is a stone dedicated
to his memory, a mark of distinction accorded by his masters, which his
son never failed to point out to me, when we passed that way). Jack
appears to inherit his quickness of apprehension; his questions, like
those of an intelligent child, are absolutely inexhaustible; his curiosity
about all things beyond this island, the prison-house of his existence,
is perfectly intense; his countenance is very pleasing, mild, and not
otherwise than thoughtful; he is, in common with the rest of them, a
stupendous flatterer, and, like the rest of them, also seems devoid of
physical and moral courage. To-day, in the midst of his torrent of
enquiries about places and things, I suddenly asked him if he would like
to be free. A gleam of light absolutely shot over his whole countenance,
like the vivid and instantaneous lightning--he stammered, hesitated,
became excessively confused, and at length replied--'Free, missis? what
for me wish to be free? Oh! no, missis, me no wish to be free, if massa
only let we keep pig.' The fear of offending, by uttering that forbidden
wish--the dread of admitting, by its expression, the slightest discontent
with his present situation--the desire to conciliate my favour, even at
the expense of strangling the intense natural longing that absolutely
glowed in his every feature--it was a sad spectacle, and I repented my
question. As for the pitiful request which he reiterated several times
adding, 'No, missis, me no want to be free--me work till me die for missis
and massa,' with increased emphasis; it amounted only to this, that the
negroes once were, but no longer are, permitted to keep pigs. The increase
of filth and foul smells, consequent upon their being raised, is, of
course, very great; and, moreover, Mr. ---- told me, when I preferred poor
Jack's request to him, that their allowance was no more than would suffice
their own necessity, and that they had not the means of feeding the
animals. With a little good management they might very easily obtain them,
however; their little 'kail-yard' alone would suffice to it, and the pork
and bacon would prove a most welcome addition to their farinaceous diet.
You perceive at once (or if you could have seen the boy's face, you would
have perceived at once), that his situation was no mystery to him, that
his value to Mr. ----, and, as he supposed, to me, was perfectly well
known to him, and that he comprehended immediately that his expressing
even the desire to be free, might be construed by me into an offence, and
sought by eager protestations of his delighted acquiescence in slavery, to
conceal his soul's natural yearning, lest I should resent it. 'T was a sad
passage between us, and sent me home full of the most painful thoughts. I
told Mr. ----, with much indignation, of poor Harriet's flogging, and
represented that if the people were to be chastised for anything they said
to me, I must leave the place, as I could not but hear their complaints,
and endeavour, by all my miserable limited means, to better their
condition while I was here. He said he would ask Mr. O---- about it,
assuring me, at the same time, that it was impossible to believe a single
word any of these people said. At dinner, accordingly, the enquiry was
made as to the cause of her punishment, and Mr. O---- then said it was not
at all for what she had told me, that he had flogged her, but for having
answered him impertinently, that he had ordered her into the field,
whereupon she had said she was ill and could not work, that he retorted he
knew better, and bade her get up and go to work; she replied, 'Very well,
I'll go, but I shall just come back again!' meaning, that when in the
field, she would be unable to work, and obliged, to return to the
hospital. 'For this reply,' Mr. O---- said, 'I gave her a good lashing; it
was her business to have gone into the field without answering me, and
then we should have soon seen whether she could work or not; I gave it to
Chloe too, for some such impudence.' I give you the words of the
conversation, which was prolonged to a great length, the overseer
complaining of sham sicknesses of the slaves, and detailing the most
disgusting struggle which is going on the whole time, on the one hand to
inflict, and on the other, to evade oppression and injustice. With this
sauce I ate my dinner, and truly it tasted bitter.
Towards sunset I went on the river to take my rowing lesson. A darling
little canoe which carries two oars and a steersman, and rejoices in the
appropriate title of the 'Dolphin,' is my especial vessel; and with Jack's
help and instructions, I contrived this evening to row upwards of half a
mile, coasting the reed-crowned edge of the island to another very large
rice mill, the enormous wheel of which is turned by the tide. A small bank
of mud and sand covered with reedy coarse grass divides the river into two
arms on this side of the island; the deep channel is on the outside of
this bank, and as we rowed home this evening, the tide having fallen, we
scraped sand almost the whole way. Mr. ----'s domain, it seems to me, will
presently fill up this shallow stream, and join itself to the
above-mentioned mud-bank. The whole course of this most noble river is
full of shoals, banks, mud, and sand-bars, and the navigation, which is
difficult to those who know it well, is utterly baffling to the
inexperienced. The fact is, that the two elements are so fused hereabouts,
that there are hardly such things as earth or water proper; that which
styles itself the former, is a fat, muddy, slimy sponge, that, floating
half under the turbid river, looks yet saturated with the thick waves
which every now and then reclaim their late dominion, and cover it almost
entirely; the water, again, cloudy and yellow, like pea-soup, seems but a
solution of such islands, rolling turbid and thick with alluvium, which it
both gathers and deposits as it sweeps along with a swollen, smooth
rapidity, that almost deceives the eye. Amphibious creatures, alligators,
serpents, and wild fowl, haunt these yet but half-formed regions, where
land and water are of the consistency of hasty-pudding--the one seeming
too unstable to walk on, the other almost too thick to float in. But then,
the sky, if no human chisel ever yet cut breath, neither did any human pen
ever write light; if it did, mine should spread out before you the
unspeakable glories of these southern heavens, the saffron brightness of
morning, the blue intense brilliancy of noon, the golden splendour and the
rosy softness of sunset. Italy and Claude Lorraine may go hang themselves
together! Heaven itself does not seem brighter or more beautiful to the
imagination, than these surpassing pageants of fiery rays, and piled-up
beds of orange, golden clouds, with edges too bright to look on, scattered
wreaths of faintest rosy bloom, amber streaks and pale green lakes
between, and amid sky all mingled blue and rose tints, a spectacle to make
one fall over the boat's side, with one's head broken off, with looking
adoringly upwards, but which, on paper, means nothing.
At six o'clock our little canoe grazed the steps at the landing. These
were covered with young women, and boys, and girls, drawing water for
their various household purposes. A very small cedar pail--a piggin, as
they termed it--serves to scoop up the river water, and having, by this
means, filled a large bucket, they transfer this to their heads, and thus
laden, march home with the purifying element--what to do with it, I cannot
imagine, for evidence of its ever having been introduced into their
dwellings, I saw none. As I ascended the stairs, they surrounded me with
shrieks and yells of joy, uttering exclamations of delight and amazement
at my rowing. Considering that they dig, delve, carry burthens, and
perform many more athletic exercises than pulling a light oar, I was
rather amused at this; but it was the singular fact of seeing a white
woman stretch her sinews in any toilsome exercise which astounded them,
accustomed as they are to see both men and women of the privileged skin
eschew the slightest shadow of labour, as a thing not only painful but
degrading. They will learn another lesson from me, however, whose idea of
Heaven was pronounced by a friend of mine, to whom I once communicated it,
to be 'devilish hard work'! It was only just six o'clock, and these women
had all done their tasks. I exhorted them to go home and wash their
children, and clean their houses and themselves, which they professed
themselves ready to do, but said they had no soap. Then began a chorus of
mingled requests for soap, for summer clothing, and a variety of things,
which, if 'Missis only give we, we be so clean for ever!'
This request for summer clothing, by the by, I think a very reasonable
one. The allowance of clothes made yearly to each slave by the present
regulations of the estate, is a certain number of yards of flannel, and as
much more of what they call plains--an extremely stout, thick, heavy
woollen cloth, of a dark grey or blue colour, which resembles the species
of carpet we call drugget. This, and two pair of shoes, is the regular
ration of clothing; but these plains would be intolerable to any but
negroes, even in winter, in this climate, and are intolerable to them in
the summer. A far better arrangement, in my opinion, would be to increase
their allowance of flannel and under clothing, and give them dark chintzes
instead of these thick carpets, which are very often the only covering
they wear at all. I did not impart all this to my petitioners, but
disengaging myself from them, for they held my hands and clothes, I
conjured them to offer us some encouragement to better their condition, by
bettering it as much as they could themselves,--enforced the virtue of
washing themselves and all belonging to them, and at length made good my
retreat. As there is no particular reason why such a letter as this should
ever come to an end, I had better spare you for the present. You shall
have a faithful journal, I promise you, henceforward, as hitherto, from
your's ever.
* * * * *
Dear E----. We had a species of fish this morning for our breakfast, which
deserves more glory than I can bestow upon it. Had I been the ingenious
man who wrote a poem upon fish, the white mullet of the Altamaha should
have been at least my heroine's cousin. 'Tis the heavenliest creature that
goes upon fins. I took a long walk this morning to Settlement No. 3, the
third village on the island. My way lay along the side of the canal,
beyond which, and only divided from it by a raised narrow causeway, rolled
the brimming river with its girdle of glittering evergreens, while on my
other hand a deep trench marked the line of the rice fields. It really
seemed as if the increase of merely a shower of rain might join all these
waters together, and lay the island under its original covering again. I
visited the people and houses here. I found nothing in any respect
different from what I have described to you at Settlement No. 1. During
the course of my walk, I startled from its repose in one of the
rice-fields, a huge blue heron. You must have seen, as I often have, these
creatures stuffed in museums; but 't is another matter, and far more
curious, to meet them stalking on their stilts of legs over a rice-field,
and then on your near approach, see them spread their wide heavy wings,
and throw themselves upon the air, with their long shanks flying after
them in a most grotesque and laughable manner. They fly as if they did not
know how to do it very well; but standing still, their height (between
four and five feet) and peculiar colour, a dusky, greyish blue, with black
about the head, render their appearance very beautiful and striking.
In the afternoon, I and Jack rowed ourselves over to Darien. It is
Saturday--the day of the week on which the slaves from the island are
permitted to come over to the town, to purchase such things as they may
require and can afford, and to dispose, to the best advantage, of their
poultry, moss, and eggs. I met many of them paddling themselves singly
in their slight canoes, scooped out of the trunk of a tree, and parties
of three and four rowing boats of their own building, laden with their
purchases, singing, laughing, talking, and apparently enjoying their
holiday to the utmost. They all hailed me with shouts of delight, as I
pulled past them, and many were the injunctions bawled after Jack, to
'mind and take good care of Missis!' We returned home through the glory
of a sunset all amber-coloured and rosy, and found that one of the
slaves, a young lad for whom Mr. ---- has a particular regard, was
dangerously ill. Dr. H---- was sent for; and there is every probability
that he, Mr. ----and Mr. O---- will be up all night with the poor
fellow. I shall write more to-morrow. To-day being Sunday, dear E----, a
large boat full of Mr. ----'s people from Hampton came up, to go to
church at Darien, and to pay their respects to their master, and see
their new 'Missis.' The same scene was acted over again that occurred on
our first arrival. A crowd clustered round the house door, to whom I and
my babies were produced, and with every individual of whom we had to
shake hands some half-a-dozen times. They brought us up presents of eggs
(their only wealth), beseeching us to take them, and one young lad, the
son of head-man Frank, had a beautiful pair of chickens, which he
offered most earnestly to S----. We took one of them, not to mortify the
poor fellow, and a green ribbon being tied round its leg, it became a
sacred fowl, 'little missis's chicken.' By the by, this young man had so
light a complexion, and such regular straight features, that, had I seen
him anywhere else, I should have taken him for a southern European, or,
perhaps, in favour of his tatters, a gipsy; but certainly it never would
have occurred to me that he was the son of negro parents. I observed
this to Mr. ----, who merely replied, 'He is the son of head-man Frank
and his wife Betty, and they are both black enough, as you see.' The
expressions of devotion and delight of these poor people are the most
fervent you can imagine. One of them, speaking to me of Mr. ----, and
saying that they had heard that he had not been well, added, 'Oh! we
hear so, missis, and we not know what to do. Oh! missis, massa sick, all
him people _broken_!'