In the old slave-owning times of the United States--happily now no
more--there was much grievance to humanity; proud oppression upon the
one side, with sad suffering on the other. It may be true, that the
majority of the slave proprietors were humane men; that some of them
were even philanthropic in their way, and inclined towards giving to the
unholy institution a colour of _patriarchism_. This idea--delusive, as
intended to delude--is old as slavery itself; at the same time, modern
as Mormonism, where it has had its latest, and coarsest illustration.
Though it cannot be denied, that slavery in the States was,
comparatively, of a mild type, neither can it be questioned, that among
American masters occurred cases of lamentable harshness--even to
inhumanity. There were slave-owners who were kind, and slave-owners who
were cruel.
Not far from the town of Natchez, in the State of Mississippi, lived two
planters, whose lives illustrated the extremes of these distinct moral
types. Though their estates lay contiguous, their characters were as
opposite, as could well be conceived in the scale of manhood and
morality. Colonel Archibald Armstrong--a true Southerner of the old
Virginian aristocracy, who had entered the Mississippi Valley before the
Choctaw Indians evacuated it--was a model of the kind slave-master;
while Ephraim Darke--a Massachusetts man, who had moved thither at a
much later period--was as fair a specimen of the cruel. Coming from New
England, of the purest stock of the Puritans--a people whose descendants
have made much sacrifice in the cause of negro emancipation--this about
Darke may seem strange. It is, notwithstanding, a common tale; one
which no traveller through the Southern States can help hearing. For
the Southerner will not fail to tell him, that the hardest task-master
to the slave is either one, who has been himself a slave, or descended
from the Pilgrim Fathers, whose feet first touched American soil by the
side of Plymouth Rock!
Having a respect for many traits in the character of these same Pilgrim
Fathers, I would fain think the accusation exaggerated--if not
altogether untrue--and that Ephraim Darke was an exceptional individual.
To accuse _him_ of inhumanity was no exaggeration whatever. Throughout
the Mississippi valley there could be nothing more heartless than his
treatment of the sable helots, whose luckless lot it was to have him for
a master. Around his courts, and in his cotton-fields, the crack of the
whip was heard habitually--its thong sharply felt by the victims of his
caprice, or malice. The "cowhide" was constantly carried by himself,
and his overseer. He had a son, too, who could wield it wickedly as
either. None of the three ever went abroad without that pliant,
painted, switch--a very emblem of devilish cruelty--in their hands;
never returned home, without having used it in the castigation of some
unfortunate "darkey," whose evil star had caused him to stray across
their track, while riding the rounds of the plantation.
A far different discipline was that of Colonel Armstrong; whose slaves
seldom went to bed without a prayer poured forth, concluding with: "God
bress de good massr;" while the poor whipped bondsmen of his neighbour,
their backs oft smarting from the lash, nightly lay down, not always to
sleep, but nearly always with curses on their lips--the name of the
Devil coupled with that of Ephraim Darke.
The old story, of like cause followed by like result, must, alas! be
chronicled in this case. The man of the Devil prospered, while he of
God came to grief. Armstrong, open-hearted, free-handed, indulging in a
too profuse hospitality, lived widely outside the income accruing from
the culture of his cotton-fields, and in time became the debtor of
Darke, who lived as widely within his.
Notwithstanding the proximity of their estates, there was but little
intimacy, and less friendship, between the two. The Virginian--scion of
an old Scotch family, who had been gentry in the colonial times--felt
something akin to contempt for his New England neighbour, whose
ancestors had been steerage passengers in the famed "Mayflower." False
pride, perhaps, but natural to a citizen of the Old Dominion--of late
years brought low enough.
Still, not much of this influenced the conduct of Armstrong. For his
dislike to Darke he had a better, and more honourable, reason--the bad
behaviour of the latter. This, notorious throughout the community, made
for the Massachusetts man many enemies; while in the noble mind of the
Mississippian it produced positive aversion.
Under these circumstances, it may seem strange there should be any
intercourse, or relationship, between the two men. But there was--that
of debtor and creditor--a lien not always conferring friendship.
Notwithstanding his dislike, the proud Southerner had not been above
accepting a loan from the despised Northern, which the latter was but
too eager to extend. The Massachusetts man had long coveted the
Mississippian's fine estate; not alone from its tempting contiguity, but
also because it looked like a ripe pear that must soon fall from the
tree. With secret satisfaction he had observed the wasteful
extravagance of its owner; a satisfaction increased on discovering the
latter's impecuniosity. It became joy, almost openly exhibited, on the
day when Colonel Armstrong came to him requesting a loan of twenty
thousand dollars; which he consented to give, with an alacrity that
would have appeared suspicious to any but a borrower.
If he gave the money in great _glee_, still greater was that with which
he contemplated the mortgage deed taken in exchange. For he knew it to
be the first entering of a wedge, that in due time would ensure him
possession of the _fee-simple_. All the surer, from a condition in that
particular deed: _Foreclosure, without time_. Pressure from other
quarters had forced planter Armstrong to accept these terrible terms.
As, Darke, before locking it up in his drawer, glanced the document
over, his eyes scintillating with the glare of greed triumphant, he said
to himself, "This day's work has doubled the area of my acres, and the
number of my niggers. Armstrong's land, his slaves, his houses,--
everything he has, will soon be mine!"