Plantation Negroes—Incidents and Characteristics.
The months of February and March, with a portion of April, I spent
mainly on Louisiana and Mississippi plantations, seeking to gain some
insight into the workings of the free-labor system on these large
estates, and especially to study the various developments of the
plantation negro character. It has been popularly supposed that the
negroes in the cotton-growing regions of the South-west were, from their
isolation in the swamps and their rarer contact with the whites, the
most ignorant, degraded, and unfit for freedom of their race. They had
escaped the careful observation given to the character of the
emancipated slaves along the coast; and, as it seemed, offered therefore
a comparatively fresh and inviting field for study.
* * * * *
Whether these plantation negroes would do less or more work now than in
a state of slavery, I found to be an unsettled point. Every old
slaveholder, I might almost say everybody in the old slaveholding
communities, vehemently argued that “niggers wouldn’t do more’n half as
much, now that the lash was no longer behind them.” On the other hand,
Northern experimenters told different stories. Some were disgusted with
the slowness and stupidity of the negroes; others said all they needed
was prompt pay. Give them that, and they would work better than the
average of uneducated white laborers.
On three plantations, where I had the opportunity of watching their
performance critically at various periods during a couple of months, I
was convinced that when they were employed in gangs, under the
supervision of an overseer who had the judgment to handle them to
advantage, they did as well as any laborers. They seemed, by nature,
gregarious. Put one at some task by himself, and there was every
probability that he would go to sleep or go fishing. Even in gangs, not
half of them could be depended on for steady work, except under the eye
of the overseer or driver; but, with his direction, they labored
cheerfully and steadily. Doubtless they worked more hours per day while
in slavery; but, they were perfectly willing now to work as many hours
as any employer ought to ask.
On many plantations they rose half an hour before daybreak, when the
horn first sounded. A few minutes before sunrise, the horn sounded
again, and they all started for the fields. By sunrise the whole force,
nearly one hundred and seventy hands, were at work. At noon they stopped
for an hour and a half—then worked till sunset. On others, the first
bell rang at four o’clock; at daybreak the second rang, and every hand
started for the fields—the wages of the tardy ones being docked. They
carried their corn-bread, boiled pork, and greens in little tin buckets,
and about eight o’clock all stopped for breakfast. In half an hour the
drivers called them to work again, which continued till twelve. Then
came an hour and a half’s rest, then work again till sundown.
I never saw hands more cheerful or contented than some managed on this
last plan were. They had a new plantation, cut out of the swamp, to
cultivate. It had eight hundred acres of arable land, nearly the whole
of it incumbered with fallen logs. The cypress trees had been “deadened”
in 1859 and 1860; during the years of the war, they had fallen, until
the place was perfectly covered with them; and the task of rolling the
logs and preparing for the plow, was almost as great as that of the
original clearing. They had begun this work about the middle of January,
with only forty-two hands, little and big. The working force was
gradually increased, till in April they had sixty-five. By the first of
April they had six hundred and seventy-five acres bedded up and ready
for planting. The old estimate was, that each first-class hand should
cultivate ten acres. Here were hands, not first class, but men, women,
and children, who had under unusually unfavorable circumstances, cleared
off and prepared for planting, an average of nearly thirteen acres to
the hand. And the overseer, an old Southern one, said he had no doubt at
all about being able to cultivate all the cotton he could get planted.
I observed, however, that when he thought they were not getting on fast
enough, he always found it necessary to offer some reward in addition to
their regular wages, to revive their drooping energies. One day he would
promise the plowmen all a drink of whisky, provided they finished a
certain “cut” by evening. Then a plug or two of tobacco would be given
to the hand who did the best work through the entire day. If they got
all the land cleared off in time for planting, they were to quit for a
day, go off to the lake across the swamp in a body and have a big
fish-fry. Still, the main motive, under the stimulus of which pretty
steady work was secured, was always that “at fust ob next month, Mass’r
—— (the proprietor) will be ’long wid greenbacks enuff to shingle a
house for us.”
* * * * *
The house servants seem singularly worthless. The praises of this class
of Southern slaves have always been loudly sung by their owners, but the
good cooks and rare housekeepers have certainly disappeared. On one
plantation which I visited, there resided at the “big house” only the
overseer and, for perhaps half of each week, the young proprietor. To
keep house for these two men, required the united energies of four
able-bodied negresses. One cooked; another assisted her; the third
waited on the table and swept the rooms; and the fourth milked the
cows—two or three in number—and made the butter! With all this muster of
servants, the two much waited-on white men lived no better than the
average of Northern day-laborers.
* * * * *
After the new planter had once secured their confidence, nothing seemed
more characteristic of the negroes than their constant desire to screw a
little higher wages out of him; or, in one way or another, to make him
turn over to them his superabundant greenbacks. All regarded him either
as an adventurous swindler, without any money at all, or as a Crœsus,
made of money. So long as they doubted his ability to pay them, they
were suspicious and watchful; captious as to the quality of the flour
and meal furnished them; severely critical on the pork, and perfect
almanacs as to the approach of pay-day. The crisis passed, supplies
abundant, money promptly paid when due, the planter then found himself
under constant siege, perpetually approached under covered ways, which
infallibly led to the citadel—his pocket.
“Mass’r, I’se got my own ’pinion ob you,” I heard one gray-wooled fellow
say to his employer, with scrape of foot, tug at cap, and every
insinuating means of expressing profoundest respect and regard; “I
doesn’t tink your’m de hardest mass’r in de world; an’ all I wants is to
hab you ’sidah my case. I’s all ’lone; I’s allus been good niggah. Rain
or shine, me an’ my hoss am at your service. We hauls de feed for de
mules to de lowah place ebery day; and on Saturdays we hauls for Sundays
too, kase I’s ’ligious, an’ wouldn’t work on Sundays no how. Now,
mass’r, I wants you to please ’sidah my case. Doesn’t you tink dat for
dat extra work on Saturday you ought to ’low me anoder day’s wages?” and
he tugged off his cap again, and gave an extra scrape to the No. 14 shoe
which encased his foot.
The facts in his “case” were, that he was employed to drive a wagon from
the granary on one place, each day, to the stables on the one below it,
both being controlled by one man, who, living at the upper place,
preferred to keep all his supplies under his own eye. The old man never
handled the grain; it was put in and taken out by others, and his sole
duty was to drive this wagon from one place to the other once a day.
This work done, he was generally sent to the swamp for a load of wood.
But on Saturdays, in consideration of his having two days’ supply of
grain to haul, he was given no other task. Now the shrewd old fellow
proposed to get extra pay for what he thus called extra work.
A sickly young man, on one plantation which I visited in April, had been
hired to watch the stables at night; mules not being safe even from the
negroes on the place, much less from those roaming about over the
country. He could not make a “half hand” in the fields, but, in the hope
that good wages would make him faithful, he was engaged at precisely the
same rate with the first-class hands, although his work was the easiest,
and, during the greater part of the year, the pleasantest on the place.
He seemed perfectly satisfied for two or three months; then, suddenly,
he discovered that he was working Saturday and Sunday nights extra, and
for them must have extra pay. “Didn’t you contract to watch those nights
as well as the rest?” “Yes.” “Didn’t you contract to do this work
regularly for fifteen dollars a month?” “Yes.” “Well, what right have
you to charge extra for these two nights, after that bargain?” “Well,
it’s been mighty cold, sah, nights; but I wanted to watch to ’blige you;
but I’s sure you pay me extra for workin’ when de oder hands don’t
work!”
At one place a man who was unable to do field work, had been hired to
feed the mules. He made his bargain, and was supposed to be entirely
satisfied. At first the mules were fed only at noon and in the evening.
After a while, orders were given to feed also in the morning.
Straightway Morton presented his claim for extra pay for this extra
duty. Soon afterward he had another claim for extra work—throwing in
corn to the mules on Sunday! And yet the whole work of this man
consisted in putting corn and hay for thirty mules in the troughs, both
being delivered to him at the door; and for this he was being paid the
same wages as the plowmen!
“We’s worked mighty hard for you;” thus said a stout, pleasant-faced
negress on an upper-coast plantation to the proprietor, on the occasion
of his long-expected visit. “We’s cut down de briars, all de briars on
de whole plantation for you, and dey was mighty high an’ tough; an’ we’s
all in rags, for de briars done tore up all our coats,[75] an’ we want
you to gib us new ones.”
“But, girls, I’ve just paid you off. Now, you ought to take that money
and buy your own clothes; that’s the way free laborers do up North, and
the world over.” “But we done tore our coats cuttin’ down you’ briars,
and we’s all rags. Why, if anybody’d come along heah you’d be ’shamed ob
us, ’deed you would, we looks so bad. An’ we all wants you to gib us new
coats. Den we fix up Sundays, an’ you be mighty proud o’ yo’ niggers.”
This last appeal was irresistible, and the girls got their “coats,” at a
cost to the planter of about two hundred and fifty dollars.[76]
The feeling among the negroes about education varied considerably with
the locality.
On the Fish Pond plantation a few soldiers, just discharged, had
recently been added to the working force. The old hands, most of whom
had belonged to the owner of the plantation, and had rarely traveled a
dozen miles from its lines, were disposed to look with critical eyes
upon the new-comers. The latter, in turn, were very eager to dazzle the
“home niggers” with a display of their acquirements.
“Don’t you know figgers?” inquired one of them, rather pityingly, of the
young head-driver; selecting as the time for making his inquiry, an
occasion when a number of girls from another plantation were making them
a visit. The driver had not been at all satisfied with the questioner’s
performance in the field. “No, I doesn’t pretend to nuffin’ more ’n I
_does_ know, like some people dat’s lately come to dis plantation. But I
tell you, Dan, if I’d a had you heah fo’ yeah ago, and you didn’t wuck
no better’n you’m doin’ now, I’d made figgers on you’ back! You
miserable, good-for-nothin’ nigger, you done broke more barrers dan
you’m wuf already, an’ you ha’n’t wuck two days yet!”
“Wat’s de use ob niggers pretendin’ to lurnin?” he continued, warming
with his subject. “Dey’s men on dis yeah plantation, old ’s I am,
studyin’ ober spellin’-book, an’ makin’ b’lieve’s if dey could larn.
Wat’s de use? Wat’ll dey be but niggers wen dey gits through? Niggers
good for nothin’ but to wuck in de fiel’ an’ make cotton. Can’t make
white folks ob you’-selves, if you _is_ free.”
“Dere’s dat new boy, Reuben,” chimed in one of the others. “Massa Powell
sent me to weigh out his ’lowance. He brag so much ’bout readin’ an’
edication dat I try him. I put on tree poun’ po’k, an’ I say, ‘Reub, kin
you read?’ He say, ‘Lord bress ye, didn’t ye know I’s edicated nigger?’
I say, ‘Well, den, read dat figger, an’ tell me how much po’k you’m got
dar.’ He scratch him head, an’ look at de figger all roun’, an’ den he
say, ‘Jus seben poun’ zacly.’ Den I say to de po’ fool, ‘Take you’ seben
poun’ an’ go ’long!’ Much good _his_ larnin’ did him! He los’ a poun’ ob
po’k by it, for I was a gwine to gib him fo’ poun’!”
I was surprised to find a good deal of this talk among many of the
plantation negroes. Wherever old Southern overseers retained the
control, and the place was remote from the towns, there was at least an
indifference to education, strikingly in contrast with the feverish
anxiety for initiation into the mysteries of print, everywhere
strikingly manifest among the negroes in cities and along the great
lines of travel.
Elsewhere, however, I saw plantations where the negroes asked the
proprietors to reserve out of their wages enough to hire a teacher for
their children. All were willing to consent to this; those without
families as well as the rest. They preferred a white teacher, if
possible, but were willing to take one of their own color, if no white
one could be obtained.
Even here, the proportion of young men and women who could spell out
simple sentences was not more than one or two in a hundred. Men of
middle age, often of considerable intelligence, professed their utter
inability to learn the alphabet. “’Pears like taint no use for we uns to
be tryin’ to larn; but ou’ chil’n, dey kin do better.”
* * * * *
On an extensive Mississippi River plantation, thirty or forty miles
below Natchez, which I visited two or three times in the months of
February and March, I was shown a negro who, in the old times, had been
considered the most vicious and dangerous slave in the entire
neighborhood. His owner, so the neighborhood gossip ran, had once sent
him over to Black River to be killed; and, at another time, had himself
been on the point of shooting him, but had been persuaded by his
neighbors to try milder measures. Twice, last year, the overseer had
tried to shoot him, but each time the cap on his revolver had snapped,
and before he could try again the negro had escaped behind the quarters.
“When I came here,” said the present overseer, himself a Southern man,
who had been an overseer all his life, “I was warned against him, and
told that I had better drive him off the place; but I liked his looks
and thought I could make a good nigger out of him.”
The “boy” walked across the space in front of the house, as he was
speaking, and respectfully lifted his hat to the overseer. He was a
model of muscular strength, and had a fine intelligent face; though
there were lines about it that spoke of high temper and a very strong
will of his own.
He had now been under the new overseer’s management two months. There
was no better hand on the plantation. He had naturally taken the place
of foreman of the log-rolling gang; the negroes cheerfully followed him
as a leader, and he was doing splendid work. There had not been the
slightest trouble with him; had never been need for the use of a single
harsh word to him. “I believe he’ll steal when he gets a chance,” said
the overseer; “but I’d like to see the nigger on this or any other
plantation that won’t do that.” In fact, so handsomely had the vicious
slave behaved under the altered conditions of freedom and kindly
confidence, that his wages had been voluntarily increased one-third, and
he had once or twice been sent out as a trusty man to try and hire more
hands for the plantation.
“There’s a proof,” said the Northern proprietor who had recently come
into possession, “of the evil influences of the old system. A man of any
spirit was sure to be driven into revolt by slavery, and then you had a
very dangerous nigger. Freedom makes a first-class hand of him.”
The case seemed clear and convincing; and, for myself, I was fully
satisfied. During the next fortnight I remember often referring to it,
in conversations with the old slaveholders, and always, as I thought,
with clinching effect. But they all shook their heads, and said they
knew that nigger too well to be hoaxed that way.
The next time I visited the plantation there was a manifest commotion
among the hands, although they were working steadily and well. “It’s all
along o’ that d——d reformed nigger of ours,” growled the overseer. “I’ll
never give in to the new-fangled notions again. A nigger’s a nigger, and
you only make a fool of yourself when you try to make anything else out
of him!”
It seemed that, the previous Saturday, when the overseer came to give
out rations, he discovered that the lock of his “smoke-house” had been
tampered with, and that nearly half a barrel of mess pork, (costing, at
that time, thirty-four dollars per barrel, delivered,) had been stolen.
A little investigation revealed the loss of several gallons of whisky,
and of sundry articles, from the store-room. He said little about it,
but quietly made some inquiries; saying nothing, however, to or about
the “reformed nigger.” But on Monday morning the boy failed to go out to
work with the rest. Being asked the reason, he replied that “the niggers
had been lying on him, saying he had stolen pork and whisky, and he
wasn’t gwine to stay among no such set; he was gwine to leab de
plantation.” The overseer told him that would be a breach of his
contract; but he said he didn’t care, and privately told some of the
hands that “he wasn’t afraid of the overseer nor of no other d——d white
man arrestin’ him!”
An hour or two later, the overseer, on riding out to the plow-gang,
found the fellow sitting there among them with a loaded gun in his hand.
One of the drivers told him Philos had threatened to kill “two niggers
on dis plantation ’fore he leave.”
“I never carried arms in the field afore in my life,” said the overseer,
“but I rode straight back to the house then, and buckled on a ‘Navy-six’
under my coat. I ’spect, if that nigger had stayed there, holding up his
gun, and lookin’ so sassy, I’d a shot him when I got back; but he
suspected something, and put out. At night, however, the scoundrel came
back, and fired off his gun back of the cabin where one of the drivers
lives. He’s got two guns and a pistol, and the niggers is all afraid of
him as death. One of the men he has threatened to kill is his own
brother-in-law. He’s hangin’ ’round the place somewhar yet, tryin’, I
suppose, to sneak off his clothes, and get his wife and some of the
other niggers to go with him.”
I found, on careful inquiry, that the story was true in all its details.
My model reformed negro had back-slidden, and proved a sad reprobate. He
had been stealing whisky for weeks, by means of a false key, and had
been selling it at nights and on Sundays, to the negroes at a wood yard,
a few miles further down the river. He was enraged at being found out,
and particularly at the negroes whom he suspected of having informed on
him.
It is very rarely, indeed, that one negro will expose another. “They
think it’s taking the part of the white man against their own people,”
explained a Mississippi overseer. “If, by any chance, some house servant
does tell you of the thefts of a hand, it will only be after exacting
innumerable promises that you will never, never, on any account, tell
how you found it out.”
In the case of the backslider, a warrant was at once procured for his
arrest on the charge of theft. “The officer told me there was another
law, recently passed, under which I could arrest and imprison him for
carrying weapons on the plantation without my consent. He appointed me
special constable to make the arrest, and promised me that if the boy
would agree to go to work, after I’d had him shut up in jail three or
four days, he’d waive proceedings; let me take him out and try him, and
then arrest him again if he made any trouble. Fact is, this officer’s
very much like the old provost marshal, last year. You just tell him
exactly what you want done, and he’ll be very apt to do just about that
thing.”
The remark may serve to illustrate how laws are administered, amid the
difficulties of the present chaotic state of affairs, in most cases,
when the subject race is involved.
Hearing of the warrant, the boy ran away. In about three weeks he
returned, very defiant, and boasting that no white man could arrest him.
He had been to the Bureau, and knew the law; he was armed, and meant to
go where he pleased. But he was promptly taken, without resistance,
before a justice of the peace. Three negro witnesses conclusively
established his guilt, and he was committed to jail to await a trial by
court, with every prospect of being sent to the penitentiary for a year
or two. Among the witnesses against him was one of the men he had
threatened to shoot. When Philos was being locked up he called to this
man and said:
“Arthur, you know I’s allus hated you, and talked ’bout you; but you was
right, when you tole me not to git into no sich troubles as dis.”
“Philos,” ejaculated Arthur, precipitating his words out in shotted
volleys, “I allus tole you so. You said, when you come back, dat you’d
been to de Bureau—know’d de law—dat no white man could arrest you. I
tole you den you didn’t know nuffin ’bout law—dat no law ’lowed you to
carry on mean.”
“Well, I t’ought I did know sumfin ’bout law, den, but I shore, now, I
don’t.”
“Dat’s so, Philos; but I tell ye, you’m got in a mighty safe place now,
whar you’m got _nuffin in de wo’ld to do but to study law_! Reckon,
Philos, by de time you git out you’ll be mighty larned nigger ’bout de
law! Good-bye, Philos.”
“The worst thing about these niggers,” explained the justice, “is that
they seem to have no conception of their responsibility. That boy,
Philos, can’t see why a word from his employer isn’t enough now to
release him, as it would have done while he was a slave. He doesn’t
comprehend the fact that he has committed an offense against the State,
as well as against his master.”
* * * * *
“Tol’able well, myself, but I’m not well contented,” replied one of the
best plowmen in the gang, on another plantation, which I visited in
March, to the inquiry of the young Northern proprietor, as to how he was
getting along.
“Why, what’s the matter, Stephen?”
“Sah, I tell you de trufe, I don’t git enuff to eat. Matter enuff, dat
is, for a man as works hard all day long.”
“But, Stephen, you get the same rations with the rest, and the same that
your employers gave you all last year.”
“Shore, sah, but I nebber had enuff, den, nuther, dough I nebber say
nuffin to nobody ’bout it, kase I’s not one de talkin’ kine.”
“Bress you, sah,” grinned the plow-driver, who had been listening to the
conversation, “he nebber had ’nuff in his life. He’m allus hungry. He ’s
de power-fullest eater I eber did see.”
“Dat’s fac’. I don’t brag on myself, but I kin eat a heap. I’s good
hand. I plows wid de bestest, and no man nebber pass me. When I hire for
man, I do best I kin for him, and take de best care I kin ob his mule;
but it mighty hard not to hab enuff to eat.”
The difficulty of making an allowance in the weekly issues of rations,
for his inordinate appetite, without making the other hands
dissatisfied, was explained to him.
“I’s got common sense. I kin see dat. But I don’t want to work for a man
and den have to buy what I eat. To be shore, I got de money, and de
chilen do eat a heap; but you don’t make no ’lowance for dem, and I
don’t want to spend de money what I earn by hard work buyin’ bread for
dem.”
A promise of a drink of whisky pacified him. As we rode off the overseer
burst out into a hearty laugh. “Why, do you know now,” and his manner
indicated that he thought it a capital joke; “do you know—that fellow’s
just the biggest thief on these plantations! Lor’ bless you, how he
_can_ steal! He not got enough to eat! Well, hog meat must be mighty
scarce in all the nigger cabins around him when _he_ hasn’t got enough!
Why, I had to discharge him last year for stealing. It got so bad that
the very niggers couldn’t stand it. Even Uncle William’s piety was
disturbed by him. One Sunday morning Uncle William’s pig was gone, and
he couldn’t find hide nor hair of it. He knowed where to hunt, and he
pitched into Stephen’s cabin. I got down there just then; and Uncle
William was a talkin’ at him, I tell you. There was some hair there,
which Uncle William declared come off his pig; and he wanted to know
what that hair was doin’ in Stephen’s cabin, if Stephen hadn’t seen the
pig! Nigger meetin’ was broke up, that day, with the row. So things kept
goin’ on till I had to discharge Stephen. He cried like a baby, and
begged to be took back, but I wouldn’t. Then he went off. Three days
later, back comes Stephen with a first-rate mule. He cried and begged so
that I let him go to work again, and hired his mule. Three days
afterward, who do you think should come along, but a nigger guard a
huntin’ for Stephen. But that nigger was too sharp for them. They got
the mule; but Stephen took for the tall cotton, and nobody saw him for
two days. Come to find out, he had gone back into the country, when I
turned him off, and had found an old nigger woman on some little patch
in the woods plowin’ with a mule. He told her that was too hard work for
her, and that if she would go to the cabin and get some dinner for him
he’d plow for her. Soon as her back was turned, he mounts mule, cuts and
runs. Do you think, when I scolded him for it, the nigger said he
wouldn’t have stole the mule, but he was afraid I wouldn’t let him come
back, and he thought if he brought me a nice mule I might be more
favorable to him! That’s the kind o’ niggers you believe, when they tell
you they don’t get enough to eat!” And again the overseer enjoyed his
hearty laugh.
* * * * *
A succession of rains kept me shut up on a Louisiana cotton plantation
for several days, early in April. When Sunday came I accompanied the
overseer down to the negro church. It stood at the end of the street, on
either side of which were ranged the quarters. It had originally been a
double cabin, intended for a couple of slave families, like the rest of
the quarters; but the middle partition had been knocked out; and space
enough was thus secured to accommodate a much larger congregation than
that which we found gathered. But with frugal mind, the worthy overseer
had determined not to waste all this valuable room. A couple of beds had
accordingly been set up at one end of the cabin, and a negro family with
a sleepy-looking baby and one or two grown daughters had this for their
home. As you entered you had your choice—you could visit the family or
go to church, as you preferred.[77] At the other end stood the pulpit—a
rough platform, fronted by a contrivance which looked like the first
bungling effort of a carpenter’s apprentice at the manufacture of a
rough, pine mantle-piece. Four or five benches in front served for pews;
and on either side of the pulpit other benches were ranged, on which
gathered the fathers and mothers of this negro Israel. Square holes in
the walls, filled with swinging wooden shutters, answered the purpose of
windows. Above were the joists, brown with the smoke of many a year,
festooned with cobwebs, hung with here and there a string of
red-peppers, or a poke of garden herbs “for the ager,” and covered with
a collection of carefully preserved fishing rods. Against the
weather-boarding, which served also instead of ceiling or plastering,
were fastened pictures of Grant and Joe Johnson; and near the pulpit was
a rough, enlarged copy of Brady’s well-known photograph of Mr. Lincoln,
with “Tad” standing at his knee, looking over an album. The imaginative
copyist however had added a meaningless face, with hair smoothly gummed
to the temples, which was supposed to represent Mrs. Lincoln. Directly
behind the preacher’s head was nailed a New Orleans merchant’s
advertising almanac-card.
Services were just beginning as we entered. One or two of the headmen
bustled about to get chairs for us; the rest continued their singing
with less staring and turning of heads than many a white congregation
exhibits over late comers. The women all wore comparatively clean calico
dresses; and the heads of all were wrapped in the inevitable checkered
and gay-colored handkerchief. Even the preacher’s head was bound up in a
handkerchief, none too clean, and over this his brass-rimmed spectacles
were made secure by means of a white cotton string.
The old fellow, (who was none other than the plantation gardener,) was
not one of those who fail to magnify their office. He seemed pleased at
the chance to level his broadsides at two white men, and he certainly
showed us no mercy. “White men might tink dey could git ’long, because
dey was rich; but dey’d find demselves mistaken when damnation and
hell-fire was after dem. No, my breddering an’ sistering, black an’
white, we must all be ’umble. ’Umbleness’ll tote us a great many places,
whar money won’t do us no good. De Lo’d, who knows all our gwines in an’
coming out, he’ll ’ceive us all at de las’, if we behave ou’selves heah.
Now, my breddering an’ sistering, white an’ black, I stand heah for de
Lo’d, to say to ebery one ob you heah, be ’umble an’ behave you’selves
on de yearth, an’ you shall hab a crown ob light. Ebery one ob you mus’
tote his cross on de yearth, eben as our bressed Master toted his’n.”
This was about the average style of the sermon. Part of it was delivered
in a quiet, conversational tone; at other times the preacher’s voice
rose into a prolonged and not unmusical cadence. He was really a good
man, and wherever any meaning lurked in his numberless repetitions of
cant phrases, picked up from the whites to whom he had listened, it was
always a good one. The small audience sat silent and perfectly
undemonstrative. The preacher once or twice remarked that there were so
few present that he didn’t feel much like exhorting; it was hardly worth
while to go to much trouble for so few; and finally, with a repetition
of this opinion, he told them “dey might sing some if dey wanted to,”
and took his seat. “D——n the old fellow,” whispered the overseer, “he
don’t do no retail business, it seems. He wants to save souls by
hullsale, or else not at all!”
A young man, wearing the caped, light-blue army overcoat, rose and
started a quaint chant. The congregation struck in and sung the line
over. The young man chanted another line, and the congregation sang it
after him; another was chanted, then sung; then another, and so on. It
was exactly the old Scotch fashion of “lining out,” except that instead
of reading the line which the congregation was to sing, the leader
delivered it in the oddest, most uncouth and sense-murdering chant ever
conceived. Presently several of the older members joined the young man
in the chant; then united with the chorus in thundering over the chanted
line again. Meantime, a number of the women began to show signs of an
effort to get up hysteric excitement. They drew up their persons to
their full hight, swayed back and forth, and right and left, then gave a
curious “ducking” motion to the head, bent down, seemed to writhe in
their efforts to rise; then drew up and began again. Presently one came
marching over toward our side, with eyes nearly shut, an
absurdly-affected expression of the ugly black features, grasped my hand
with effusion, and squeezed it as if it were a nut she wanted to crack.
Then came a squeaking “O-o-oh!” supposed to express unspeakable delight;
and she passed to the black man and brother by my side, catching both
his hands in the same vice, and going through the same performance. Thus
she moved from one to another around the church, while the singing grew
fast and furious, and the sisters twisted their bodies about
hysterically as they sang, and shouted “glory!” between the lines.
The prayers were made up in about equal proportions of “Oh-a-o-ahs,” “O
merciful Father,” “Ooh-ooh-oohs,” profuse snuffling, and wiping of eyes
and nostrils, and ludicrously perverted repetitions of the common forms
of addressing the Deity, which they had heard among the whites. Many of
them seemed almost entirely destitute of any distinct, intelligible
meaning. The women furnished a running accompaniment, entirely novel to
me. One, a stout negress, with lungs like a blacksmith’s bellows, set up
a dismal howl through her nose. The rest joined in, in different keys,
and the combination furnished a sort of chant, without one word in it,
or one effort to articulate a word, which kept pace with, and sometimes
drowned out, the prayer.[78]
Singing and prayer alternated several times. The demeanor of all was
earnest; and, so far as the emotions went, there could be no doubt of
their sincerity. Finally the preacher rose, announced that on “next
Sunday dere would be baptisin’, an’ all dat was ready for de water mus’
be present. On de Sunday followin’ dere would be de funeral. Some forty
or more had died since de las’ one, and he mus’ hab deir names now afore
de funeral come off. Ef de water wasn’t too high, he would hab it
outside de levee, at de buryin’ groun’; but ef de water was ober dat,
dey would try an’ git ’mission of Mr. ——, (naming the overseer,) to hab
it in front ob de house, for der’d be a great crowd.”[79] And with that,
he reverently pronounced the benediction; and a few struck up a lively
hymn tune, while the rest dispersed to the quarters.
It was very absurd; but, after all, who shall pronounce it valueless?
Perhaps they do rise from their knees to steal—even white church members
have been known to do the same. Perhaps most of them are too ignorant to
comprehend religious matters—but it is on white, not black, shoulders
that the sin for their ignorance rests. This very preacher had more than
once been dragged from the pulpit and given forty lashes for presuming
to repeat passages of the Bible, and talk about them to the slaves.
[Illustration: _Paying Off.—Page 525._]
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Footnote 75:
The Yankee change of the good old English “gown” into “dress,” has
been outdone by the plantation negroes in Louisiana. Instead of asking
for “dresses,” they ask for “coats.” “What a splendid coat dat ’ar
calico’d make!”
Footnote 76:
In Charleston harbor, the spring previous, Admiral Dahlgren showed our
party the plantation book of a heavy coast planter. He was a devout
man, paying tithes and giving God thanks for the good things of this
life. At the end of a successful year’s operations he humbly returned
thanks to a bountiful Providence, (as it was duly written down by
himself,) for having been blessed to the extent of a net profit of
thirty thousand dollars. Thereupon, in token of his gratitude, he
ordered a distribution of money to every slave he had—_six and a
fourth cents cash to each and everyone_!
He had forbidden the slaves wandering about to other plantations; but
they wanted to sell their garden vegetables, and so he established a
domestic market. Everything was to be sold at the house, at the fixed
rates which he established. Eggs were to be bought at one cent per
dozen. Chickens were six and one-fourth cents per dozen, except in the
case of a favorite old man, who was to be paid double price for all he
had to sell.
Footnote 77:
Another church, which I found on a cotton plantation in Mississippi,
was located above the stable—the staircase leading up to it on the
outside, from the barn-yard.
Footnote 78:
This they call “mourning for their sins, as the angels mourn.” The
sounds were certainly the reverse of angelic. There are no words in
the “mourning;” it is simply a nasal, aggressive, persistent boo-hoo,
in chorus, by half the women present. Not a tear is to be seen, and
the girls often rise from their knees, and in half an hour are begging
the overseer for a drink of whisky.
Footnote 79:
When a dead person is interred, they call it simply the “buryin’.”
After thirty or forty deaths, they have a big meeting and a funeral
for the whole of them; thus distributing funeral honors, as the
overseer said the preacher did his salvation, “by hullsale.” At this
time the water was nearly over their burying ground, which was outside
the levee.