A COLONIAL PLANTATION
'Tis with no very willing heart that I sit down to write, as best I
may, the account of the vastly strange and remarkable occurrences that
took place in and about my home when I was but a girl of eighteen
years of age, it being then the year of our Lord 1728. Yet, since it
has to be done, let me address myself to the task as ably as I can,
and pray that strength and lucidity may be accorded to me, so that
those who, in days to come, shall read that which I set down, may be
easily led to understand what I now attempt.
I, Joice Bampfyld, was, as I say, at the period at which I take up my
pen, nearing eighteen years of age, and I dwelt at Pomfret Manor,
situated, on the southern bank of the James River, in His Majesty's
state of Virginia, the estate being some fifty miles inland from the
mouth of Chesapeake Bay, and some ten miles south-west of the township
of Richmond. On this manor, which had passed into my hands two years
before at the decease of my dear and lamented father, who was of the
third generation of the Bampfylds settled there, we raised tobacco and
corn in large quantities and had good horned cattle and many sheep,
while for the fruits of the earth there was no lack, so that my life
from the first had ever been one of ease and comfort, and, even in
Virginia, we of Pomfret Manor were accounted well-to-do folk. Yet,
comfortable as was the existence here, there was still much in our
surroundings that disturbed that comfort, as it disturbed the comfort
of all our neighbours. Thus, our negro servants were now-a-days not
always to be depended on for their fidelity; sometimes they would
project insurrections and revolts which, when put into practice,
could only be subdued by bloodshed, while our indented or convict
servants--I mean the whites--were even still more troublesome, what
with their runnings away, their constant endeavours to seduce the
blacks from their allegiance, their drunkenness when they could get at
drink, and their general depravity. For depraved they were beyond all
thought, being most of them convicts from the jails in England who had
saved their necks by praying to be sent to Virginia to be sold as
plantation-hands, while the remainder were as often as not criminals
evading justice, who, in England, had cheerfully sold themselves into
four years' slavery (four years being the limit here, though much
longer in the sugar-producing islands of the West Indies) so as to
escape from the eye of justice and begin a new life in a new land.
And, also, amongst them there were defaulting debtors and bankrupts,
men who were flying from their wives and children, women who were
deserting their husbands, and, sometimes, wretches who, when drunk in
the seaport towns at home, had been carried on board and brought to
the colonies, where, although they at first resented their kidnapping,
they soon settled down to be as great villains as their fellows. Yet,
had it not been for these dreadful people, one knows not how the
plantations could have been kept prosperous, since certain it is that
no free-born Englishman in Virginia, or any other of the colonies,
would consent to toil in the fields, while the negroes were so lazy,
and, in many cases, so sullen, that little hard work could be got out
of them. Indoors the blacks would do their duties cheerfully enough;
they loved cooking and nursing; they took pride in polishing and
keeping in order the beautiful furniture which our fathers and
grandfathers had imported from England, and in looking to the silver
and the brasses. They did not even make objection to gardening,
keeping our walks and grass plots in excellent order and our rose
vines well trained against the walls, but that, with their delight of
fiddling at dances and singing of songs, was all that they would do
willingly.
Yet these minor troubles were but little and sank into nothingness
beside the one great trouble, nay, the awful horror, that was always
near us. I mean the Indians. Earlier, in the first Colonial days, the
red men had dwelt in some semblance of friendship with our
forerunners; they would live in peace with them, sleep by their
firesides, eat from their platters, and teach them how to capture all
the game of the forests and the fish of the waters. Yet, even then,
all this harmony would be occasionally disturbed by a sudden outbreak
on their part resulting in a dreadful massacre which, in its turn,
resulted in a massacre on the part of the colonists in retaliation.
So, as time went on, these two races, the white and red, which had
once dwelt as friends together drew away from one another; the Indians
retired further into the Alleghany mountains or even crossed them into
the unknown land lying west of them, while the colonists made good
their holdings on the eastern side of those mountains and defied the
red men. But, still, the state of things was most dreadful--most
horrible. For though the Indians had withdrawn, and, of late years,
had made no great raid on the settlements in our part, one never knew
when they were not meditating an attack upon some quiet manor like my
own, or some peaceful village consisting of a few scattered houses, or
even upon some small town. Men went armed always--at church every
man's loaded firelock, or gun, reposed against the side of the pew in
which he worshipped--no woman thought of going a mile away from home
without an escort, and children who wandered into the woods would
often disappear and never be heard of again. So that one would meet
weeping mothers and sad-faced looking fathers who mourned their
children as dead, nay, who would rather have mourned them as dead than
have had to bow to the living fate that had o'ertaken them. For they
never came back, or, if they came, 'twas in such a shape that they had
better have died than have been taken. One, the child of John Trueby
of Whitefountain, did indeed come back fifteen years after he had been
stolen by the Shawnees, dressed and painted as an Indian of that
tribe, but only to slay his own father with a tomahawk at the
direction of those with whom he had become allied. Another, who had
been stolen by the Doeg Indians, returned only to his native hamlet to
set fire to it, beginning with the wooden frame-house in which his
mother and sisters had mourned him for years. Who, therefore, should
not tremble at the very name of Indian? Who that had a child should
not kneel down and pray to God to take that child's life rather than
let it fall into the hands of the savages, where its nature would
undergo so awful a change, and amongst whom it would develope into a
fiend? For those who once dwelt with the Indians in the mountains, and
adopted their customs and habits, became fiends, 'twas said, and
nothing else.
This horror, as well as the dread of being surprised and having our
houses burnt over our heads, we had always with us, always, always; as
well also as the fear of being carried into captivity and tortured;
or, in the case of girls like myself, of being subjected to worse than
torture. When we lay down to sleep at night we knew not whether we
should be awakened ere morning by some one knocking at our door and
calling, "The Indians! The Indians!" If we looked forth on to our
garden to observe its beauties as it lay in the moonlight, we deemed
ourselves fortunate if we did not, some time or other, see the hideous
painted face of a savage and his snake-like eyes gleaming at us from
behind a tree or bush. Sometimes, also, floating down the river at
night, when there was no moon, would be discerned by those who had
sharp eyes the canoes of our dreaded foes bent on some awful errand,
and full of painted, crouching savages. And then, through the still
night air, would ring the ping of bullets discharged from the shore by
some of the men who were always on the watch for such visitations; a
canoe, or perhaps two, would be sunk, and a day or so afterwards there
would be washed ashore the naked bodies of some horrid dyed Indians
who had been drowned, or shot, as they were surprised. I do not say
'twas always so, but it was so very frequently, and scarce a summer
passed by that we did not have some visits from them, while we ever
lived in dread of a determined onslaught from a whole tribe in which
not only our farm, plantations, homesteads, or manors should be
surrounded by hundreds of our foe, but also entire villages or towns.
Pomfret Manor--named after the village of Pomfret in Dorsetshire, from
which my great-grandfather, Simon Bampfyld, had removed to Virginia in
the days of King Charles the Second--was the principal house in the
lordship or hundred of Pomfret, as 'twas called in English fashion (of
which fashions we colonists were always very tenacious), and, as we
had thriven exceedingly since first we came, it also gave its name to
the village hard by. Now, my great-grandfather having brought
considerable money with him from home, had soon become one of the
leading colonists, as well as one of the richest, in the
neighbourhood. The house itself had once stood in Dorsetshire, and had
been taken to pieces there and removed bit by bit to Virginia, as is
the case with many other mansions to be found in the colonies. So the
dear place in which I was born had seen the birth of many other
Bampfylds before me when it existed in England, and was consequently
much beloved by us. Constructed of the old red English bricks, with,
for its front, a vast portico with columns of white stone, it made a
pleasant feature in the landscape, while, with careful training, we
had produced a smooth lawn which ran down almost to the banks of the
river, and, on either side of it, we had contrived a sweet pleasaunce,
or garden. Here there grew amidst the rich Virginian vegetation such
flowers--recalling my ancestor's earlier house across the seas--as
roses of all kinds, including the Syrian damask and the white alba;
here, too, sparkled the calendula, or marigold, and there the
wall-flower; while beds of pinks, or, as the flower was called in old
days, the Dianthus, added to the patches of colour. Over our big
porch, so cool to sit in on the hot days, there grew also the native
creepers mingling with the yellow jasmine--a world of gorgeous flowers
in the summer and of warm red leaves in the autumn--in which the
oriole, or golden thrush, would nestle and rear its young. In the rear
of the house was yet another lawn, or plantation, whereon we sat in
the summer under the catalpa trees when 'twas too hot to be in the
front; where the pigeons cooed from their cote and the cattle munched
the soft grass, while, from their kennels, the mastiffs, used for
fighting, or, better still, frightening the Indians who could not face
them, and for tracing runaway negroes, would be heard baying. Around
the grounds came next the belts of pines which were cultivated
largely, both for firing and for the making of much household
furniture; beyond them were the plantations of tobacco and of rice,
which latter had by so fortunate a chance been introduced to our
immediate colonies some thirty years ago.
Such was the house in which I was born and reared, such the place in
which occurred the stirring incidents which now I have to record.
These incidents brought me and mine near unto death; they dealt out
suffering and pain to many and punishment and retribution to one
villain at least. But, also, they brought to my heart so tender and so
sweet a joy, and to him whom I afterwards came to love so deep and
cherished a happiness--as he has since many times told me--that on my
knees nightly I thank my God that He saw fit in His great goodness to
let those incidents take place.
And now I will address myself to all I have to tell.
When my dear father was within two years of his death, though neither
he nor any other dreamed of it, so hale and strong did he seem, he and
my cousin, Gregory Haller of Whitefountain, set out for Norfolk town
one May morning intending to ride there that day, put up for the
night, and, on the following day, purchase many things that were
wanted for our respective homes; and so back again. Such journeyings
were necessary periodically, and took place usually some six or
eight times a year, I sometimes riding with them also, if I wanted
a new gown or some ribbons imported from England, or a pair of
silver-fringed gloves, or, may be, any pretty nick-nack that I should
happen to set eyes upon which might grace our saloon or living-room.
At other periods, as now, I would be left at home with my companion
and tutoress, Miss Mills, a young English lady who had dwelt with us
for some two years. She had come to the colonies from Bristol, of
which she was a native, in search of employment as a teacher, and with
high recommendations, one being from the Bishop of Bath and Wells, a
most goodly man as all accounts declared. She liked but little our
being left alone without my father, as may well be understood, and
having around us nothing but negroes and bought, or indented, white
servants; yet, whether we liked it or not it had to be borne as best
might be. Both of us could handle pistols, in the use of which my
father had perfected us, as was necessary, or might at any instant be
necessary; and there were about the house one or two men who could
perhaps be relied upon. Such was Mungo, our old negro butler, who,
like myself, was of the fourth generation of his race settled in
Virginia, since his great-grandfather was brought a slave from Africa
and sold to my Lord Baltimore; and there were one or two others of his
colour. Yet, as I say, we liked not being alone and, even on the
hottest summer nights, would have all the great house carefully closed
and barred and shuttered, and would pass our time as best we might by
playing and singing at the spinet, or playing at such games as ombre
or shove-groat. And Mary Mills and I would huddle ourselves together
in my great bed at night for company, and, as we sillily said, for
safety, and shiver and shake over every mouse that ran behind the
wainscot or at every sound we heard without, dreading that it meant
the Indians or a revolt amongst the plantation hands.
Therefore you may be sure that whenever my father and cousin, or my
father alone, returned from Norfolk or from Jamestown, we were right
glad to see them, and to know that our loneliness as well as our
unprotectedness was over for the time; and so 'twas now. They rode in
as we were sitting down to our midday meal and, after my father and
Gregory had each drunk a good stoup of rum (which we exchange largely
for our tobacco with our brother colonists in Jamaica, the men finding
it a pleasant, wholesome drink, when mixed with water) the former
said:
"So my chicks have not been harried by the Indian foxes this time
neither. 'Tis well. And see, now, there are some ships in from home.
His Majesty's sloop _Terrific_ is in the Bay, and the girls of
Richmond are preparing to give a dance to the officers--thou should'st
be there, Joice!---and there is a merchantman from London full of
precious stuffs and toys. Yet, since I have no money, I could bring
thee nought, my dear."
Here we laughed, for my father ever made this joke preparatory to
producing his presents, and I said:
"What have you brought?"
"What have I brought? Well, let me consider. What say you now to a new
horloge for the saloon? our old one is getting crazy in its works, as
well it may be, since my grandfather brought it from home with him.
This one hath Berthould and Mudges' 'scapements, so the captain of the
ship told me," my father went on, reading from a piece of paper, "or
rather wrote it down, and he guarantees it will be going a hundred
years hence. Then, for a silk gown, I have purchased thee some
pieces--our own early ventures in Virginian silk were none too
successful!--which will become thy fair complexion well, and I have an
odd piece of lace or two for a hood. While for you, Miss Mills," with
an old-fashioned bow, which I think he must have learnt when young and
used to attend Governor Spotswood's receptions, "as you are a dark
beauty I have brought also a lace hood, and a new book since you love
verse. 'Tis by one Mr. Thomson, and seems to describe the seasons
prettily. The captain tells me it has ever a ready sale at home."
Then we thanked him as best we knew how, after which Gregory--who was
ever timid and retiring before women, though like a lion, as I have
heard others say, when chasing the Indians or a bear or wolf--stepped
forward and said:
"And I, too, have brought thee a present, Joice, if thou wilt take it
from my hands."
He spoke this way because his heart was sore that I could not love him
and would not promise to be his wife, often as he had asked me. Tho',
indeed, I did love him as a cousin, nay, as a brother, only he always
said it was not that he wanted but a love sweeter and dearer than a
sister's.
"I have brought you," he went on, "a filagree bracelet for your arms,
tho'," in a lower voice, "they need no adornment. And for thy head a
philomot-coloured hood, different in shape from the one uncle has
brought. And its russet hue should well become thy golden hair, that
looks like the wheat when 'tis a-ripening."
But here I bade him pay me no more compliments lest I should become
vain, and then we all sat down to our meal together.