_Phillis Schoonmaker_ v. _Cuff Hogeboon_.
This was an action for a breach of the marriage promise, tried before
’squire De Witt, justice of the peace and quorum. The parties, as their
names indicate, were black, or, as philanthropists would say, _coloured
folk_. Counsellor Van Shaick appealed on behalf of the lady. He
recapitulated the many verdicts which had been given of late in favour
of injured innocence, much to the honour and gallantry of an American
jury. It was time to put an end to these faithless professions, to these
cold-hearted delusions; it was time to put a curb upon the false tongues
and false hearts of pretended lovers, who, with honied accents, only
woo’d to ruin, and only professed to deceive. The worthy counsellor
trusted that no injurious impressions would be made on the minds of the
jury by the colour of his client--
“’Tis not a set of features,
This _tincture of the skin_, that we admire.”
She was black, it was true; so was the honoured wife of Moses, the most
illustrious and inspired of prophets. Othello, the celebrated Moor of
Venice, and the victorious general of her armies, was black, yet the
lovely Desdemona saw “Othello’s visage in his mind.” In modern times, we
might quote his sable majesty of Hayti, or, since that country had
become a republic, the gallant Boyer.--He could also refer to Rhio Rhio,
king of the Sandwich Islands, his copper-coloured queen, and madame
Poki, so hospitably received, and fed to death by their colleague the
king of England--nay, the counsellor was well advised that the brave
general Sucre, the hero of Ayacucho, was a dark mulatto. What, then, is
colour in estimating the griefs of a forsaken and ill-treated female?
She was poor, it was true, and in a humble sphere of life; but love
levels all distinctions; the blind god was no judge, and no respecter of
colours; his darts penetrated deep, not skin deep; his client, though
black, was flesh and blood, and possessed affections, passions,
resentments, and sensibilities; and in this case she confidently threw
herself upon the generosity of a jury of freemen--of men of the north,
as the friends of the northern president would say, of men who did not
live in Missouri, and on sugar plantations; and from such his client
expected just and liberal damages.
Phillis then advanced to the bar, to give her testimony. She was, as her
counsel represented, truly made up of flesh and blood, being what is
called a strapping wench, as black as the ace of spades. She was dressed
in the low Dutch fashion, which has not varied for a century,
linsey-woolsey petticoats, very short, blue worsted stockings, leather
shoes, with a massive pair of silver buckles, bead ear-rings, her woolly
hair combed, and face sleek and greasy. There was no “dejected ’haviour
of visage”--no broken heart visible in her face--she looked fat and
comfortable, as if she had sustained no damage by the perfidy of her
swain. Before she was sworn, the court called the defendant, who came
from among the crowd, and stood respectfully before the bench. Cuff was
a good-looking young fellow, with a tolerably smartish dress, and
appeared as if he had been in the metropolis taking lessons of
perfidious lovers--he cast one or two cutting looks at Phillis,
accompanied by a significant turn up of the nose, and now and then a
contemptuous ejaculation of Eh!--Umph!--Ough!--which did not disconcert
the _fair_ one in the least, she returning the compliment by placing her
arms a-kimbo, and surveying her lover from head to foot. The court
inquired of Cuff whether he had counsel? “No, massa, (he replied) I tell
my own ’tory--you see massa ’Squire, I know de gentlemen of de jury
berry vell--dere is massa Teerpenning, of Little ’Sophus, know him berry
vell--I plough for him;--den dere is massa Traphagan, of our town--how
he do massa?--ah, dere massa Topper, vat prints de paper at Big
’Sophus--know him too;--dere is massa Peet Steenberg--know him too--he
owe me little money:--I know ’em all massa ’Squire;--I did go to get
massa Lucas to plead for me, but he gone to the Court of Error, at
Albany;--Massa Sam Freer and massa Cockburn said they come to gib me
good character, but I no see ’em here.”
Cuff was ordered to stand aside, and Phillis was sworn.
Plaintiff said she did not know how old she was; believed she was
sixteen; she looked nearer twenty-six; she lived with Hons Schoonmaker;
was brought up in the family. She told her case as pathetically as
possible:--
“Massa ’Squire,” said she, “I was gone up to massa Schoonmaker’s lot, on
Shaungum mountain, to pile brush; den Cuff, he vat stands dare, cum by
vid de teem, he top his horses and say, ‘How de do, Phillis?’ or, as she
gave it, probably in Dutch, ‘How gaud it mit you’ ‘Hail goot,’ said I;
den massa he look at me berry hard, and say, Phillis, pose you meet me
in the nite, ven de moon is up, near de barn, I got sumting to say--den
I say, berry bell, Cuff, I vill--he vent up de mountain, and I vent
home; ven I eat my supper and milk de cows, I say to myself, Phillis,
pose you go down to de barn, and hear vat Cuff has to say. Well, massa
’Squire, I go, dare was Cuff sure enough, he told heaps of tings all
about love; call’d me Wenus and Jewpeter, and other tings vat he got out
of de playhouse ven he vent down in the slope to New York, and he ax’d
me if I’d marry him before de Dominie, Osterhaut, he vat preached in
Milton, down ’pon Marlbro’. I say, Cuff, you make fun on me; he say no,
‘By mine zeal, I vil marry you, Phillis;’ den he gib me dis here as
earnest.”--Phillis here drew from her huge pocket an immense pair of
scissars, a jack knife, and a wooden pipe curiously carved, which she
offered as a testimony of the promise, and which was sworn to as the
property of Cuff, who subsequently had refused to fulfil the contract.
Cuff admitted that he had made her a kind of promise, but it was
conditional. “I told her, massa ’Squire, that she was a slave and a
nigger, and she must wait till the year 27, then all would be free,
cording to the new constitution; den she said, berry vell, I bill wait.”
Phillis utterly denied the period of probation; it was, she said, to
take place “ben he got de new corduroy breeches from Cripplely Coon, de
tailor; he owe three and sixpence, and massa Coon won’t let him hab ’em
vidout de money: den Cuff he run away to Varsing; I send Coon Crook, de
constable, and he find um at Shaudakin, and he bring him before you,
massa.”
The testimony here closed.
The court charged the jury, that although the testimony was not
conclusive, nor the injury very apparent, yet the court was not
warranted in taking the case out of the hands of the jury. A promise had
evidently been made, and had been broken; some differences existed as to
the period when the matrimonial contract was to have been fulfilled, and
it was equally true and honourable, as the court observed, that in 1827
slavery was to cease in the state, and that fact might have warranted
the defendant in the postponement; but of this there was no positive
proof, and as the parties could neither read nor write, the presents
might be construed into a marriage promise. The court could see no
reason why these humble Africans should not, in imitation of their
betters, in such cases, appeal to a jury for damages; but it was
advisable not to make those damages more enormous than circumstances
warranted, yet sufficient to act as a lesson to those coloured gentry,
in their attempts to imitate fashionable infidelity.
The jury brought in a verdict of “Ten dollars, and costs, for the
plaintiff.”
The defendant not being able to pay, was committed to Kingston jail, a
martyr to his own folly, and an example to all others in like cases
offending.
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