Further Illustrations of Plantation Negro Character.
I witnessed the monthly payments on several large plantations. On one
the negroes had never been paid before; their masters having retained
control of them till the end of the war. They had been hired about the
middle of January, and had worked till the beginning of March, without
asking for money. The lessee rode into the quarters and up to the
overseer’s house, one day at noon, and it was soon whispered among the
negroes that they were to be paid that night. Numbers of them, however,
had complicated store accounts, and it took the lessee longer to
interpret his overseer’s imperfect book-keeping than had been expected.
The night passed without a word being said to the negroes about payment;
they never mentioned it, and next morning were promptly in the fields
before sunrise.
The following evening, however, they kept watching about the overseer’s
house; one and another making some little errand that would excuse him
for loitering a few moments by the steps or on the long gallery, and
presently all understood that “we’s to be paid greenbacks, shore enuff.”
Finally a table was placed in the door of one of the rooms. The
pay-roll, store-book, and some piles of greenbacks and fractional
currency were spread out upon it, a couple of candles, fastened to the
table by smearing it with melted tallow and dipping the ends in it
before it congealed, furnished all the light. A hundred eager eyes
watched the proceedings from the doors of the quarters. At last the bell
was tapped by one of the drivers. In a moment or two the gallery was
covered by the “whole stock of the plantation,” (as the overseer
expressed it,) men, women and children.
They stood at respectful distance in a circle around the table, and with
wide-eyed curiosity awaited developments. The lessee read from the
pay-roll the contract, and asked them if they understood it; all said
they did. Then he explained that, as they had only worked a couple of
weeks in January, he hadn’t thought it worth while to go to the trouble
of a payment for so short a time. Accordingly they were now to be paid
for this part of January and for the whole of February. But they were
only to be paid half what they had earned. The rest was to be reserved
till the end of the year as a security for their faithful fulfillment of
their contract. “That’s the security on one side. Perhaps, as most of
you haven’t known me very long, you’d like to know what security you
have, on your side that, at the end of the year I’ll keep my part of the
contract and pay you this money?” They said nothing, but looked as if
they _would_ like to know. “Well you’re going to raise a big crop of
cotton, aren’t you?” “Yes, _sah_” with emphasis. “Well, the bigger the
crop the bigger your security. Every bale of that cotton is yours, till
you are paid for your work out of it, and the Freedman’s Bureau will see
that it pays you.”
Then he read over the long pay-roll, told each one how many days he or
she had worked, and how much had been earned; how much of this was due
now, and how many dollars or cents were to be paid at the end of the
year. “Dat’s so,” occasionally interrupted one in a reflective manner.
“I did miss five days, I’d done forgot all ’bout it till you tole me.”
Next he read over the charges in the plantation store against a number
of them. Then began the payments. Looking out from the lighted doorway
into the darkness, one could see the fringe of black faces lining the
gallery, their eyes shining as the light from the candles struck upon
them. Beyond was blackness and a confused murmur of many whispers;
within, the circle advanced one and another to the table to receive the
currency rapidly counted out. The lessee carefully explained to each how
much there was, and that a similar sum was still due; counted the money,
note by note, folded it up, and handed it over. The negro looked with a
puzzled air, took the money as if it were fragile glass, and must be
handled very carefully or it would be broken, and went off very much
with the air one always imagines, the man must have worn who drew the
elephant in a raffle.
“Missah ——,” exclaimed one, “I done wuck mighty hard fo’ you, chop
briars and roll logs, and you haint paid me nuffin at all.”
“Haven’t I? Didn’t you get two new dresses, three rings, and a breastpin
out of the store?”
“Well, but you don’ gib me no money.” And it took not a little laborious
explanation on the part of the lessee, before the finery-loving young
negress could be made to understand that she couldn’t take up her wages
in the store and still draw them in money—couldn’t both eat her cake and
have it.
“Missah ——, how much does you pay me a month?”
“Ten dollars.”
“Well, you done gib me, you say, only dollah and six bits.”
“Yes, but you’ve been working only a few days. Don’t you know, you’ve
had the chills nearly all the time?”
“Well, but you say you pay me ten dollah a month, and you doesn’t do it.
Aint you payin’ for de month? An’ if you is, why don’t I git my ten
dollah?”
Cases of this sort, however, were rare. Here was a more common one:
“Missah —— doesn’t you pay me fifteen dollah a monf?”
“Yes.”
“But you aint done gib me a bit o’ money.”
“No; but how much did you get out of the store, Ben?”
“He didn’t git nuffin in de wo’ld ’cept stuff fo’ one shirt an’ a pair
o’ boots,” interposed his old mother.
“No, auntie, you’re mistaken; he got several things for you. Don’t you
remember having a box of sardines for dinner, a week or two ago?”
The old woman ’peared like she did ’member dat.
“And haven’t you had cheese, three or four times?”
Nebber in de wo’ld but onct, she was shore, or most-ways, more ’n twict.
“Now, auntie,” said the lessee, improving the occasion after the fashion
of the divines, “you have a right to spend your earnings any way you
please; you’re free. It’s none of my business what you do with your
money. But if you would let me give you a little advice, I’d tell you
all not to waste your money on fish, and candy, and rings, and
breastpins, and fine hats. If you will have them, we’ll sell them to
you, but you had better not buy so freely. Look how Ben. has wasted his
money!” And he proceeded to read the following account:
BEN. BROWN, DR.
To one pair Boots $7 00
To one pair Mackerel 50
To one pair Sardines 50
To one pair One Ring 1 00
To one pair Shirting 2 00
To one pair Candy 50
To one pair Mackerel 1 00
To one pair Cheese 50
To one pair Two Rings 2 00
To one pair Breastpin and Ear-rings 6 00
To one pair Whisky 1 00
To one pair Whisky 50
To one pair Tobacco 50
To one pair One Ring 1 00
To one pair Two Rings 2 00
To one pair Mackerel 50
To one pair Whisky 50
To one pair Candy 50
To one pair Sardines 50
To one pair Candles 50
To one pair One Ring 1 00
To one pair Hat 2 50
To one pair Tobacco 50
To one pair One Skillet 1 50
To one pair Candy 50
———
Total $34 50
As every item of this precious account was read, Ben. nodded his head.
Presently the people began to laugh, and the reading ended in a roar.
Ben., it seemed, had a good many sweethearts, and the whole plantation
knew, better than his old mother did, where the wondrous succession of
brass rings had gone. To the girls who wore them, the joke seemed
particularly funny, and Ben. got no sympathy in his discomfiture.
About two hundred dollars served to complete the entire payment for
sixty-five hands. Half of them had already been paid all, and more than
all, that was due them, from the store. In such cases, the lessee, while
giving the overseer strict instructions to credit them no more, unless
in cases of absolute need, was very careful to conceal from them the
entire amount of their indebtedness. “There’s danger of their running
off,” he argued, “if they knew how deep they had got into us.”
One old woman asked for her full wages, saying she wanted to go to
another plantation to be nearer her husband. “Don’t you know that you
contracted with me for a year?” “Don’t know nuffin about it. I wants to
go ’way.” “Haven’t you been well treated here?” “Yes.” “Well, I’m
keeping my part of the contract, and you’ve got to keep yours. If you
don’t, I’ll send you to jail, that’s all.”
* * * * *
On another plantation the mode of dealing with the negroes approached
nearer the cash basis. Nearly all were well supplied with clothes and
other necessaries, when hired, and there was, therefore, no necessity
for giving them credit in the plantation store. Tickets were issued for
each day’s work. If anything was wanted before the end of the month, the
tickets were received for goods at their face value; but no goods were
sold without payment either in money or tickets.
The payment began in the evening as soon as the day’s work was over. The
proprietor took his place in the overseer’s room. The people gathered on
the gallery and clustered about the door. As the names were called, each
one entered the room, producing from some cavernous pocket-book or old
stocking-foot a handful of tickets. The overseer rapidly counted them,
the negro closely watching. Often it was insisted that there ought to be
more. In every such case they were at once counted over again, slowly
and distinctly. It rarely happened that this did not end the dispute.
Sometimes, however, fresh search in some unexplored pocket, or a return
to the quarters and examination of the all-concealing bed-clothes, would
produce another ticket or two.
The number announced, the proprietor called off the amount earned, and
counted out one-half of it, while the overseer wrote an informal
due-bill for the other half, and the next name was called, while the
slow-motioned negro was gathering up his change and due-bill.
Outside could be heard the grumbling of those who thought they ought to
receive more, the chucklings of the better satisfied, the speculations
of the unpaid as to how much they would get; and over all, the plans of
the women as to what they would buy wid de money, fus’ time we’s go to
Natchez. Sometimes one would be absent when the name was called. The
rest shouted it in chorus, and presently the missing negro would come
running up, tickets in hand, crying, “Heah me!” “Heah me!”
They seemed to have poor success in keeping the money. At the very
payment I have been describing, an old blind carpenter, (who, strangely
enough, really earned ten dollars a month, in spite of his blindness,
making hoe-handles, plow-handles, and the like,) lost his pocket-book.
Next morning it was carefully placed under his door, but the money was
all gone, with the exception of an old Confederate five-dollar bill,
which had been considerately left behind. The next day the elder of a
family of three girls took out her pocket-book, containing the money of
all three, from its hiding place in the bed, to buy some candy. She
replaced it at once, and went out of the cabin. On her return, a few
minutes later, the pocket-book was gone, and the poor girls were twelve
dollars poorer.
In general, the girls spent their money almost as soon as they got it.
Most of the men were more economical. Some of them had a hundred or more
dollars saved up.
The pay roll disclosed some quaint freaks of nomenclature. “They’ve had
the greatest time picking names,” said the overseer. “No man thought he
was perfectly free unless he had changed his name and taken a family
name.” “Precious few of ’em,” he slily added, “ever took that of their
old masters.”
One boy was called “’Squire Johnson Brown.” It seemed that his mother,
“since dis time come,” (as they always say when they mean since their
emancipation,) had chosen to call herself Brown; and, like a dutiful
son, he thought it would be no more than respectable that his last name
should be the same as his mother’s. But there was a ’Squire Johnson over
on Black River, for whom he had a great regard; and, as he had a name to
take, he insisted on taking Squire Johnson’s. This, however, was quite a
minor performance compared with that of another boy, whose name was duly
written down, “States Attorney Smith!”
Neither here nor at any point through the regions of the great
plantations did I discover any such knowledge of their Northern
benefactors as would naturally be evinced in names. There were no
Abraham Lincolns among them; no Charles Summers; no Wendell Phillips; or
Owen Lovejoys. There were plenty of Chases, but I could not find that
any of them knew they bore the same name with the Chief-Justice, or had
selected it with the slightest reference to him.
An old man, white-headed, with shrunken eyes and broken voice, came in.
“If’t please you, sah, I hears as you’s ou’ new mastah. I’s old nigger
on plantation, sah, an’ I’s come to ask you if you’d be so good as to
please be so kin’ to ole nigger as has allus worked faithful all his
days, as to git me a little piece o’ groun’ to plant co’n and punkins,
to help keep me an’ ole ’oman?”
“O, yes, uncle, we’ll give you a garden.”
“But, sah, I’s got garden already, what ole mastah gib me, long time
ago, and I’s allus had. But, mastah, you mus’ considah I’s got to buy my
close now, an’ my shoes, an’ my hat, an’ my ole ’oman’s close; an’ I
wants to make a little meat; an’ if you’d be so good as to please let me
hab patch of groun’ for co’n an’ punkins besides.”
“How old are you, uncle?”
“Sebenty-five yeah, sah.”
“Have you no children who could support you?”
“You’s got ’em hired for you, sah. Dere’s John, an’ Ruthy, an’ Milly,
an’ Jake. But dey’s got deir own fam’lies; an’ when man gits ole dey
don’t care so much. Sometimes dey gib me piece o’ meat, and sometimes
dey say dey haint got none for me; den it comes pretty hard on me an’
ole ’oman. You gibs me half ’lowance, sah; ef’t wasn’t for dat, I spec
we couldn’t lib ’t all.”
The South is full of such cases. In most instances, to their credit be
it said, the old masters give the worn-out negroes a little land to
cultivate and houses to live in; but very often they have no ability to
go further. Sometimes the children support their aged parents;
sometimes, as here, they plead that they have their own families to
maintain, and seem to feel sure that, rather than see them starve, the
whites will take care of them. Northern lessees feel all their notions
of conducting business on business principles outraged at the idea of
having to support all the old negroes, in addition to hiring the young
ones; but, in the main, their feelings get the better of their business
habits. The instances are very rare in which old and helpless negroes,
deserted by their children and by their former masters, are driven off
or left to starve by the new-comers. In this case, the old man was
allotted about an acre and a half of land, was furnished a house, and
supplied with half rations; all of which was pure charity, as there was
no possible way in which he could make any return to the hard-pressed
lessee, who had already paid an exorbitant rent (twenty-five dollars per
acre) to the old master for the land.
* * * * *
The wife of one of the head-drivers on a Louisiana plantation, had been
for some months confined to the house, and most of the time to her bed,
by a very curious gangrenous disease, which had attacked one foot. It
became necessary, in the opinion of the physicians, as well as of the
old woman herself, and of her husband, to amputate the entire foot. “It
really _is_ necessary in this case,” explained the physician privately;
“But nine times out of ten, when these niggers will come to you and beg
you to cut off a leg or an arm, there is no real need for any operation
at all. They have a great notion for having amputations performed; and
really, sir, I’m afraid that sometimes our young physicians have been
tempted by the fine chance for an instructive operation, to gratify them
when they should not.”
In many parts of the South, the number of these young physicians is
somewhat startling. Young men who felt the desirability of having a
profession, although without either necessity or desire for practicing
it, have resorted to medicine, as at the North, under similar
circumstances, they would have adopted the law. Medicine has been the
aristocratic profession.
At the time appointed for the amputation, in the case of the driver’s
wife, a young gentleman came to see the operation performed. He was the
son of a South Carolina rice-planter. For two years he had not heard
from his father, and he was very anxious to know whether I had observed
the condition of the old homestead on Edisto, when among the Sea
Islands, the previous spring. Formerly, he had been a rice-planter
himself; but now he had to take up the practice of his profession; and
he had thus of late been led to give his attention to some plan for
organizing proper medical care for the poor negroes, who now had no kind
masters, bound by self-interest, if not by affection, to secure them the
best possible attendance. In short—to strip away his delicate
circumlocution—he wanted to get a contract on the plantations by which
each able-bodied negro would pay him fifty cents a month, (making a net
profit of say fifty dollars a month from each plantation,) in return for
which he would prescribe for them when they needed anything. He thought
that if ten or fifteen plantations would give him such a contract, he
would be able to live by it. I thought so too.
Like most South Carolinians he had no difficulty in expressing his
political views. As to secession, he supposed it was settled by the
argument of force. On that, and on slavery, the only thing the Southern
people ought to do was simply to accept the situation. But to whip them
back into the Union, and then keep out their representatives till the
Northern States had prescribed a rule of suffrage for the South, which
they wouldn’t adopt themselves, was a subversion of republican
principles. “I’d stay forever without representation, first, and let
them govern us as territories. But I tell you what our people will do; I
say it with shame; but even South Carolinians, of whom I am particularly
ashamed, will do it. They will all submit to whatever is required.
They’ll do whatever Congress says they must; and so our only hope is in
the noble and unexpected stand Johnson is taking for us.
“After all,” he continued, after a moment’s thought, “it’s very curious
that we should be depending on such a man. I’m glad of his stand,
because he’s on our side; but what a miserable demagogue he is and
always was!”
We waited and waited for the physician in charge of the case, but he
broke his engagement completely. When two or three days afterward, he
was seen and asked about it, he explained that this young South
Carolinian had told him he had been called in as a consulting physician
in the case. “I thought it very strange; and I’m very cautious about
these consulting physicians with whom I have no acquaintance. I lost a
life through one of them once. I always called that death, killing by
courtesy; and my conscience won’t stand any more of it; so sir, I stayed
away.”
“It seemed that he had once been summoned to amputate the leg of a
negro, injured by some accident at the cotton-gin. He found another
physician in charge, who was expected to assist him. I asked the fellow
to control the circulation while I prepared for the operation, which was
to be performed not far from the ankle. D——n the blockhead, sir; what do
you suppose he did? Why, sir, he applied the tourniquet to the femoral
artery almost at the top of the thigh! But what could I do? I did
venture to ask him if he felt quite sure that would stop the bleeding
below the knee, and he bristled up as if I had insulted him. To have
said any more would have been to have had a duel on hands with the son
of one of our first families, and to have been ruined in the community
whether I fought him or not. So I had to go ahead and perform the
operation. The very first motion of the knife deluged me with blood! The
poor negro bled to death, of course; and I called it killing by
courtesy. I’ve done with that sort of thing. I’ll perform that operation
out there, for it is sadly needed; but you must keep that ‘consulting
physician’ away. I have nothing to do with consulting physicians about
whom I know nothing!”
I subsequently witnessed the operation. Three or four negro women were
in the room. The stolidity with which they watched the carving and
bleeding of their sister’s person seemed amazing. Only once did they
manifest the slightest emotion—when the saw began to grate on the bone.
Yet they were kind enough to the poor sufferer; though I could not
resist the impression that her life or death was a matter of comparative
indifference to them. “Niggers never care for one another much,” said
the overseer. Could he be right? They often manifest abundance of
emotion—is it _so_ abundant as to be without depth?
The husband, however, professed great joy. “I’s tuck care o’ ’Manda dis
long. She done cost me more ’n tree hundred dollars, but I’s spend tree
hundred more, if dey’s needed. Nebber you cry ’Manda. I’ll watch you
long’s you live, and after you’s dead. I’s watch you long’s a bone’s
leff.” He gave an account of the origin of the disease:
“One night, she done been hollerin’ all de night long. In de morning she
git me look at her foot. Juss as I look, she gib a big scream, and out
of de little sore on him bottom dere popped de last rattle from de end
ob a rattlesnake tail. Den I know what de matter. Didn’t I, Mr. Smith?”
appealing to the overseer. “Didn’t I go straight to you an’ tell you
some o’ dem bad niggers been a conjurin’ wid de debbil on my wife? Den I
ax you for some whisky dat no man nebber mix no water wid. You gib me
some. Den I tuck dat rattlesnake button out o’ my wife’s foot down to de
ribber, an’ I conjure on him. Fust I say words ober him. Den I sprinkle
whisky, dat dere’s nebber been no water in, ober him. Den I sprinkle
some whisky in de ribber. Den I frow him in after de whisky. Den I
sprinkle more whisky atop of him. An’ den I tuck good drink o’ whisky,
dat dere’s nebber been no water in, myself.”
But the other negroes conjuring with “de debbil” were too much for poor
Charles, whisky and all; and his wife’s foot had grown steadily worse.
When I first saw her, she was propped up in a chair, screaming every
minute or two as if she were in mortal agony, and employing the
alternate moments in gnawing at a huge stick of peppermint candy which
her husband had brought her. After the operation was performed, she
seemed highly pleased, and there was every reason to hope that she would
recover.
“She not my wife berry long,” explained the driver, with an appearance
of actual pride in the announcement. “She done been my sweetheart, long
afore she been my wife. I had two or tree chil’en by her while she my
sweetheart. When my old wife die, de moder of dese gals you see here, I
tought dere was no use foolin’ ’bout so much, so I sends to de corral
where ’Manda was, an’ I done hab her ebber since.”
In all this he was but a type of the whole class of plantation negroes
in Louisiana. I have seen hundreds of such cases. I do not think it too
strong an expression (judging from the evidences on every hand, and from
the concurrent testimony of all parties, Northerners, Southerners,
whites and blacks) to say that, among the old plantation slaves of
Louisiana and Mississippi, virtue was absolutely unknown. Neither men
nor women had any comprehension of it; nor could I learn that the
highest standing in their churches made the slightest difference. Yet
who shall deny the Christianizing influences of slavery? Have not
doctors of divinity attested it; and do we not know them, that their
testimony is true?
* * * * *
In the last days of March I was riding with a Northern lessee of a fine
plantation on the Mississippi, over his back land. Sixteen double plows
and a gang of fifty hoes were rapidly diminishing the distance between
the land “bedded up, ready for cotton-planting,” and the swamp at which
their labors were to terminate. The field resounded with the ringing
snatches of song from the merry women in the hoe-gang, and with the
cries of the plowmen: “Git up, Mule!” “You, Bully, I say, whar you gwine
to!” “Mule, didn’t I tell ye, las’ week, I’d thrash you if you sarve me
dat trick agin!” “Now, Mule, don’ you fool wid me any more!” “Git up,
Morgan, you heifer you!”
The fiery-red clouds which marked the sun’s place, had sunk till they
were casting their shadows through the swaying moss on the cypress in
the swamp, and the overseer was just riding over from the hoe-gang to
tell the plowmen to turn out for the night. A stout, broad-faced woman,
big enough and strong enough to knock down almost any man on the
plantation, came stalking up to the proprietor, as he lounged in the
saddle, with his right leg thrown over his horse’s neck, watching the
last labors of the day:
“If you please, sah, I’s a good han’ as everybody know, an’ I’ll go
farder, an’ do cleaner dan any woman on dis place; an’ I ax ob you juss
one favor; an’ I want you, sah, fur to please fur to grant it; an’ I’ll
be mightily obleged to you.”
“What is it, Aunt Susan? I know you’re a good hand—none better.”
“Dat’s so, sah. You set me to work by myself an’ you’ll be ’sprised. I’s
do more wuck one day dan you spec from any tree women you got on de
plantation. I allus good nigger, an’ I wucks faithful fur you allus. An’
de favor what I ax of you, an’ I wan’ you to please fur to grant it, is
dat you let my daughter Maria, heah, come home to me from your upper
place, an’ stay heah wid me, her mudder.”
“Why, auntie, she’s Jasper’s wife. You don’t want to take her away from
Jasper. He’s one of our drivers, and one of the smartest men on the
upper place.”
“Well, I dunno ’bout dat. I tought him smart too; but Jasper done beat
my Maria hisself, an’ dat wat I don’ think he do right. But to-day de
women up dere, fur I tell you de trufe, dey all hate my Maria. You don’
know dem niggers as I knows ’em. ’Fore God, dere aint nuffin in dis
wo’ld, as God is my helper, so mean as a mean nigger. I know dem
Scotland niggers. Dey’s a mighty mean set; and dey’s all togedder
’gainst my Maria. To-day at noon, you had Jasper away, and dem women
know’d it. So dey tole lie an’ sed Maria done tore up Flora’s dresses;
an’ dey gits around her, an’ double-teams on her an’ beats her mos’ to
death; an’ I wants you, sah, if you please, sah, to let Maria come down
from dat mean upper place, an’ stay heah wid me.”
“What! and leave Jasper?”
“Dunno nuffin ’bout Jasper. Reckon if he care much for her, he can come
and see her’n; if he don’ nobody’ll care. He can come or stay ’way, jus’
as he please.”
The girl, Maria, stoutly confirmed her mother’s story. “Dey all done
double-team on her, an’ beat her mos’ to deff. Ef Jasper’d been dere,
dey wouldn’t ’ve done it, but dey know’d Jasper was gone.” She was
altogether the prettiest girl on either of the plantations, with regular
and really quite expressive features, small hands and feet, and a
well-formed person. Withal, she was as black as jet.
“De trufe is, sah, she won’ tell you, but I will. Jasper done been
runnin’ after oder women up dere too much, an’ dat’s de reason dey hates
Maria. Jasper’s mammy, she’s agin Maria, an’ de pore chile haint a fren
on de whole mean place, an’ I wish you would _please_ let her come down
an’ stay wid me. Dey try to poison her las’ yeah, an’ now dey try beat
her to deff. But _please_ let her come to her mammy, an’ I’s take care
ob her!” And she shook her mighty fist in earnest of the way she meant
to do it.
It was finally arranged that she should bring Maria back to the upper
place, (from which she had run away after the quarrel at noon,) that
Jasper should be called in, and the affair arranged in any way they
could agree upon.
So, by seven o’clock in the evening, up they came, sure enough. Meantime
it had been ascertained that the girl had really slipped into the house
of Flora Aitch, of whom she was particularly jealous, and had torn all
her fine dresses. Flora was in high dudgeon, swore she would strip dat
Maria naked ’fore God an’ man but she’d have pay or revenge. Jasper,
too, had been consulted. He said Maria was lazy, and he had been
compelled to whip her several times; but he would have got along well
enough if it had not been for that sneaking, meddling mother-in-law.
Altogether, it was very much such a complication as will break out
sometimes even in the social relations of the “master race.”
The proprietor was by this time pretty well broken in. He had become
used to a great many droll performances, and divorcing a married couple
seemed about as easy to do as anything else.
“Well, are you all satisfied to quit? Jasper, what do you say?”
“I says dey do jus’ as dey please. Dey didn’t ’suit me fust, an’ I hab
no’ting to do wid it last. M’ria’s mammy done treat me like dog all de
time. If she want to take M’ria ’way, she can do it. I’s nuffin to say.”
“Maria, you said, out in the field, you loved Jasper dearly. Do you want
to leave him?”
“So I does lub Jasper. But I don’ wan’ dem women to double-team on me,
an’ beat me when he ’way.”
“But do you want to leave him, and go to live with your mother again?”
“No use axin’ her,” interrupted Jasper angrily. “Ax dat ’oman dere, her
mudder. She got all de say, an’ done hab it ebber sence I had her
daughter.”
“Yes, you mean t’ing; an’ you beat my chile, an’ run off from her arter
oder women.”
“Dat not true. I nebber done nuffin ob de sort, nebber; but you done
keep tellin’ pack lies on me all de time.”
By this time both were talking at once, at the highest pitch of their
voices, and gesticulating with corresponding violence. The poor girl
stood between them, her hands meekly clasped together, awaiting the
result of the quarrel. The overseer looked on with a contemptuous smile,
“he’d seen such rows among niggers all his life;” and three or four
women—with the curiosity said to be occasionally evinced by some of
their sex—had slipped in the room to watch the contest.
The proprietor quietly waited for one or other of the parties to get out
of breath. Each had a decided disposition to “get into the wool,” of the
other, but the presence of white folks prevented. At last Aunt Susan’s
tones could be made out amid the din:
“You went off wid Flora Aitch, you good-for-nothin’ nigger! I was dar,
dough you didn’t know it! I seed you! Den w’en you cum back to your
wife, w’y didn’t you make much ob her, an’ try to make up? But, no! you
goes to wuck an’ beats her!”
“Ob co’se I beats her, kase she need it; I allus will! Who’d hab a wife
ef he didn’t beat her w’en she didn’t behave herself? But I allus treats
M’ria well, an’ you knows it, an’ so does my mammy.”
“I don’ care nuffin ’bout your beatin’ her w’en she deserve it, but w’en
you go off after oder women, you no business to come back an’ beat her.”
And on that rock they split. Jasper maintained the indefeasible right of
a husband to flog his wife, and the mother, while admitting the general
principle, insisted that there ought to be exceptions.
“Well, I’ll settle this very soon,” said the proprietor at last. “Aunt
Susan, take Maria down with you. I hold you responsible for making her
work as much as Jasper did.”
“T’ank you berry much, sah!” And out they went, divorced by this summary
process, and apparently all the better friends for it.
But in the quarters there was soon fresh uproar. They had gone to
Jasper’s cabin to get Maria’s clothes, and had here encountered Jasper’s
“mammy.” The two old women began storming at once, and the full
vocabulary of negro billingsgate rang through the entire quarters. A
crowd collected about the door, and in a moment Flora Aitch appeared,
rampant in her demands for pay for her torn dresses, “afore dat sneakin’
gal carries her rags ’way from heah!” “Or I’ll strip you,” she yelled at
the open door, “’fore God! I’s strip you naked’s soon’s you set your
dirty foot outside. I’s pound you! I’s cut you up! I’s eat you
blood-raw! I’s mad, I is, an’ I’s do anyt’ing, if you don’ pay me for
dem tore dresses!”
The calmer negresses approved the justice of Flora’s complaint. “She
ought to be made to pay for dem.” “It ought to be tuck out ob her
wages.” “If ’twas my dresses she done tore, she wouldn’ git off so
easy.” Nobody seemed to think anything of Flora’s alleged criminality
with Jasper. Maria’s provocation to the offense was as nothing. It was a
mere matter-of-course; “but dem tore dresses was a burnin’ shame.”
At last Maria’s effects were all bundled up, and she her mother appeared
at the door. Flora was by this time quite composed, especially as she
saw the overseer near, and ready to prevent blows. “Dere she come, a
totin’ her rags. Leb her go. She done brought nuffin but rags when she
come heah, an’ she got nuffin but rags to take away, ’cept what Jasper
fool enough to gib her. But she pay me yet for dem tore dresses, or I
eat her blood.” It was hinted by some of the peaceably disposed that the
women might slip down the road, between the two plantations, and waylay
Maria. Accordingly the overseer, followed rather sulkily by Jasper,
accompanied them down to the “line ditch.”
“Well, dat’s breakin’ up mighty easy,” said one of the women. “Lo’d help
me, _I’d_ make more fuss ’fore _my_ husband should leave me. I’d hold on
to him tight, I would. I’d tear him coat all off ob him, any way, ’fore
he git off.”
“Dat wouldn’t help you none. I’s smarter’n dat,” said another. “I’d my
man afore white man up to Natchez; an’ I done got paper to hole him.
Jus’ lef him leab me if he dar’; I take dat paper to de provo’, an’ he
go to jail, or he come back an’ lib wid his wife, me.” She had procured
a marriage certificate. The most laughed at her; said that wouldn’t keep
a man, if he wanted to go, and that the best thing was to get somebody
else.
“Tell Jasper come and see me,” said Maria to the overseer, as they
parted. “If he don’t, I’ll go back an’ see him.”
“Dat won’t do her no good,” growled Jasper, when he heard it. “I’s glad
to git rid ob her, an’ she never need come back to me. I won’t hab her
no more.”
“Pshaw, they’ll be better friends than ever in a month. Jasper will get
another wife now, and have Maria for his sweetheart.” Thus said the
practical overseer.
And so ended the new proprietor’s first divorce case. It may serve to
give an insight into some of “our domestic relations.”