Payments, Strikes, and other Illustrations of Plantation Negro
Character.
On one of the “best-stocked” plantations that I visited in Louisiana, I
witnessed, in March, a “strike” of the entire force. It was a curious
illustration, at once of the suspicions and the docility of the blacks.
The negroes had been hired by a Southern agent, who had formerly acted
as factor for the plantation. These gentlemen are never likely to fail
in magnifying their offices; and in this particular case it happened
that the agent left very distinctly upon the minds of the negroes the
impression that he was hiring them on his own account. “When, therefore,
a month or two later, the proprietor went out and assumed charge, they
became suspicious that there was something wrong. If they had hired
themselves to the old factor, they didn’t see why this new man was
ordering them around, unless, indeed, he had bought them of the factor,
which looked to them too much like the old order of things. Not one word
of this, however, reached the ears of the proprietor. Before him all was
respectful obedience and industry.”
It happened that some little difficulty occurred in procuring the large
amount of fractional currency needed to pay them off; and pay-day came
and passed before it was obtained. The negroes had never mentioned
payment to the proprietor. He asked the overseer, who replied that
probably they would never know it was the beginning of a new month,
unless he told them, and that therefore it was best to say nothing about
the payment till the money came up from New Orleans.
One afternoon, a day or two later, the proprietor spent in the field
with the laborers. Riding up among the plow-gang, he dismounted, talked
with the plowmen about the best way of working, took hold of one of the
plows himself, and plowed for some little distance. Everybody seemed
cheerful. Going over to the trash-gang, he found there the same state of
feeling; and after mingling with them till nearly sundown, he returned
to the house without the remotest suspicion of any latent discontent;
or, indeed, as he said afterward, without having himself once thought of
the deferred payment.
Next morning the overseer came dashing up to the house, before
breakfast, with the alarming news that “the hands were on a strike;
declared that they didn’t hire with the man who was now on the
plantation, that he hadn’t paid them, and they wouldn’t work for him.”
Not one, he said, would leave the quarters; and they were complaining
and plotting among themselves at a great rate. The proprietor took the
matter coolly, and acted on a shrewd estimate of human nature.
Fortunately for him, the house was, in this case, some distance from the
quarters. Directing the overseer to hurry off to the Freedman’s Bureau
and bring down the agent, he quietly resumed his easy chair and
newspaper. The mules had all been taken from the plowmen as soon as they
refused to work, and brought up to the house. They could not go to work,
therefore, without asking permission.
The negroes expected to see the proprietor down at the quarters the
moment he heard of their action. He had peremptorily refused to give
them an acre of land apiece, to plant in cotton; and their plan was to
refuse now to work till he promised them this land, and satisfied them
about the payments. But hour after hour passed, and no proprietor was
seen. Growing uneasy, they sent out scouts, who speedily returned with
the news that he was reading his paper on the front gallery, just as if
nothing had happened. Manifestly, he was not alarmed, which greatly
disappointed them; and was waiting for something or somebody, which
might be cause of alarm to _them_. In short, instead of being masters of
the situation, they were suddenly eager to get out of a scrape, the
outlet from which began to look very uncertain. By-and-by, they sent the
plow-driver up to the house to ask if they could have the mules again.
The proprietor told him “not just at present;” and added that after a
while he should go down to the quarters. Meantime no person must on any
account go to work.
About twelve o’clock the overseer returned with the agent of the
Freedman’s Bureau, a one-armed soldier from the Army of the Potomac.
They rode down to the quarters where the whole force was gathered,
uneasily waiting for developments. He asked what was the matter.
“We’s not been paid di’s monf.”
“Did you ask for your pay?”
“N-n-no, sah.”
“Did you make any inquiry whatever about it, to find out why you weren’t
paid?”
“N-n-no, sah.”
“Didn’t you have plenty of chance to ask? Wasn’t Mr. —— out among you
all yesterday afternoon? Why didn’t you ask him whether it wasn’t time
for your payment?”
“Well, sah, we dono Missah ——; we hired ou’selves to Missah ——, (naming
the New Orleans factor,) and we’s afeard we git no money. We nebber
heern o’ dis man.”
The agent read over their contract; and explained to them how, being
busy, the proprietor had simply sent an agent to attend to the business
for him. All professed themselves satisfied at once, save one lank,
shriveled, oldish-young fellow, who said, in a very insolent way, that
“He’d done been cheated las’ yeah, and he wanted his money now, straight
down. He was as good as any other man; but tree o’ four time now dis
yeah new man, wat pretended to be boss had passed him in de fiel’
without ever lookin’ at him, much less speakin’ to him fren’ly-like; and
he was’n’ agoin’ to stand no sich ways.” The agent sharply rebuked him
for such language; and finally told him that he had already broken his
contract, by refusing to work without sufficient cause, and that if he
gave a particle more trouble, he would arrest him for breach of
contract, and throw him into jail. The rest seemed ashamed of his
manner. As it subsequently appeared, he had been the leader in the whole
matter. The plowmen had gone to the stable in the morning, as usual, for
their mules. This fellow met them there, persuaded them that they were
going to be cheated out of their money, and induced them to return to
the quarters. Several of them wanted to go to work; and took good care
to inform the proprietor that, “Dey didn’t want to quit, but dere was no
use in deir wuckin’ by demselves, cause de rest’d say dey was a turnin’
gin deir own color an’ a sidin’ wid de wite folks.”
By one o’clock, half an hour earlier than the required time, every man,
woman, and child of the working force was in the field. Since then there
has not been the slightest trouble on the plantation.
In all such cases the Freedman’s Bureau seemed invaluable. The negroes
had confidence in its officers; and, in general, obeyed them implicitly.
I knew that but for this very agent not less than a dozen heavy planters
would have been compelled to suspend operations. All availed themselves
of his services. Rebel generals, and men whose families carefully
stepped aside into the street lest they should pass under the United
States flag, were equally ready to call on the agent on the occasion of
the slightest misunderstanding with their negroes. His authority was
never disputed.
* * * * *
Some negroes on a plantation which I visited in February, were
determined to wheedle or extort permission from the new lessee to plant
cotton on their own account. There were about forty men on the
plantation, each one of whom insisted upon at least an acre of land for
this purpose, besides his half acre for a garden, and an acre more for
corn and pumpkins. One Saturday afternoon, when they were up in Natchez,
they met the lessee on the streets, and at once began preferring their
claims.
“Boys;” said he, “I have never thought of the matter at all. I don’t
know how much land I could spare you; and I don’t know whether there
would be objections to your growing cotton for yourselves or not. I’ll
look into the matter; and the first time I’m down there will give you my
conclusion about it.”
“No, sah; one time’s juss as good as anoder. You can tell us now juss as
well’s any time.”
“Can’t you wait till I look into the matter?”
“No: you can tell us juss as well now’s two weeks later. Ob co’se you’m
got de lan’ dar, an’ you can gib it well’s not.”
“You won’t wait for an answer then?”
“No, sah; we wants it right off.”
They thought they were sure of it, and determined to strike while the
iron was hot.
“You must have an answer right off?”
“Yes, sah.”
“Very well. Here it is then. NO!” And without another word he walked off
and left them. His overseer had been watching the affair. “If you’d a
yielded an inch to ’em then,” he said, “you’d a been pestered and run
over by ’em all season. ’S long’s they think they can browbeat you into
givin’ ’em things, they’ll do it; an’ if you’d a let ’em plant cotton,
every acre they’d a had in would a brought three or four bales. They’d a
picked all over your fiel’ at night to get their cotton out.”
One Sunday, a week or two later, the lessee was passing about among the
quarters. The men gathered around him, and one of them introduced the
cotton-planting question again.
“Berry, wasn’t it you that spoke to me about this, up in Natchez, the
other day?”
“Yes, sah, you said you’d tink about it.”
“So I did; but you refused to let me. Didn’t you tell me you must have
an answer right off?”
“Y-yas, sah; but may be, if you’d tink ’bout it, it’d be better for us.”
“Didn’t you say though that you must have an answer right off?”
“Y-yas, but”——
“_Stop!_ Didn’t you get your answer right off?”
“Yas, but”——
“_Stop!_ You got it. Well, I always keep my word. If you had waited, I
might have given a different answer; but you wouldn’t wait so you got
your answer; and it is all the answer your going to get.”
Meantime the crowd was chuckling at the discomfiture of Berry. It didn’t
seem to concern them so much that they were losing their case, as it
amused them to see how Berry had entrapped himself. Every time he
attempted to renew the discussion, the lessee stopped him with the
reminder that he had demanded an answer in Natchez, and had got it; and
each time the laughter of the crowd at their own champion grew more
uproarious.
* * * * *
While this was going on in the street between the quarters, I stepped
into one of the cabins. Stretched out on a bench lay the corpse of an
old man; for many years the head driver on this very plantation. His
head was partially covered; the body was rudely wrapped in cotton cloth;
and over his stomach was placed a delf saucer, full of coarse salt.
“Dat’s to keep him from swellin’ ’fore we bury him,” explained the
bereaved wife; who, with a house-full of people looking on, was engaged
in dressing herself for the funeral. Her sick baby was in the hands of
another negress—its feverish and parched little head absolutely inside
the chimney, in which a great fire was blazing. The woman said they had
made so much noise last night, after the old man died, that the child
had got no sleep. “Reckon you’d make noise too, ef you los’ you’
husban’. Husban’s ain’t picked up ebery day. Dey’s plenty ob men you can
hab, but taint ebery day you can git a good husban’.”
In the afternoon they buried him. The rough board coffin was lifted into
a cart, to which one of the plantation mules was attached. A great
crowd, composed of negroes from three or four plantations followed,
singing a hymn in mournful, minor chords that, rendered in their
wonderfully musical voices, seemed at a little distance almost equal to
the finest performance of the “Dead March,” in Saul. The grave was in
the plantation burying-ground, in the common outside the levee. It was
only about four feet deep; yet it seemed half-full of water. A lusty
young fellow rolled up his pantaloons, jumped down into the grave and
vigorously baled out for ten minutes. Even then the coffin sank out of
sight, and the little clods which each one hastened to throw in upon it
only fell, with a splash, into the muddy water. “Dis is de length an’
breadth of what we’s all a comin’ to,” began the old preacher; and for a
few moments he continued in the most sensible strain I had heard from
any one at any of their religious exercises. Then came more singing,
while the grave was filled up; and then they all started back, chatting
and laughing as they went.
The passion for whisky is universal. I never saw man, woman, or child,
reckless young scapegrace, or sanctimonious old preacher among them, who
would refuse it; and the most had no hesitancy in begging it whenever
they could. Many of them spent half their earnings buying whisky. That
sold on the plantation was always watered down at least one-fourth.
Perhaps it was owing to this fact, though it seemed rather an evidence
of unexpected powers of self-restraint, that so few were to be seen
intoxicated.
During the two or three months in which I was among them, seeing scores
and sometimes hundreds in a day, I saw but one man absolutely drunk. He
had bought a quart of whisky, one Saturday night, at a low liquor shop
in Natchez. Next morning early he attacked it, and in about an hour the
whisky and he were used up together. Hearing an unusual noise in the
quarters, I walked down that way and found the plow-driver and the
overseer both trying to quiet Horace. He was unable to stand alone, but
he contrived to do a vast deal of shouting. The driver said, “Horace,
don’t make so much noise; don’t you see the overseer?” He looked around,
as if surprised at learning it.
“Boss, is dat you?”
“Yes.”
“Boss, I’s drunk; boss, I’s ’shamed o’ myself; but I’s drunk! I ’sarve
good w’ipping. Boss; boss, s-s-slap me in de face, boss.”
The overseer did not seem much disposed to administer the “slapping;”
but Horace kept repeating, with a drunken man’s persistency, “slap me in
de face, boss; please, boss.” Finally the overseer did give him a
ringing cuff on the ear. Horace jerked off his cap, and ducked down his
head with great respect, saying, “T’ank you, boss.” Then, grinning his
maudlin smile on the overseer, he threw open his arms as if to embrace
him, and exclaimed, “_Now, kiss me, boss!_”
Next morning Horace was at work with the rest; and, though he has bought
many quarts of whisky, he has never been drunk since.
On one occasion I saw a novel example of the difficulties that sometimes
occur in the best regulated plantations. On this one, there were no
better plowmen than Alfred and Moses. Each, however, had a young and
pretty (i. e. jet black and regularly-featured) wife. The women were
disposed to attract all the admiration they could, and the boys grew
very jealous. Several times they gave their wives sound beatings; but
this didn’t seem to reach the root of the complaint. In their turn the
wives grew jealous, doubtless not without ample cause, and not being
able to beat their husbands, they did the next best thing, and attacked
their husbands’ “sweethearts.” In such encounters they came out second
best more than once.
Finally they resolved that “Dey was mighty mean niggers on dis
plantation, an’ we’s gwine to leave it.” Accordingly next morning
neither they nor their husbands appeared in the field. The drivers
promptly reported the facts, and the overseer sent down to their cabins
to see what was the matter. Word was brought back that they couldn’t get
along wid de niggers, an’ they was gwine to leab. They were at once
ordered to come up and explain themselves; and, in a few moments, all
four made their appearance. They had no complaints to make; they were
well-fed and lodged, promptly-paid, kindly treated.
“We likes you fus-rate, Missah, and we’s be glad to stay wid you, but
dese niggers is all de time a quarrelin’ an’ a fightin’ wid us; dey aint
like folks at all; dey’s mean, low-down niggers. We’s nebber been used
to ’sociate wid such; we wasn’ raised to it, an’ we can’t stand it no
longer. We’s mighty sorry to leab you; but we’s a gwine ’way.” Thus said
the women. The boys wanted to stay; but if their wives went they would
have to go with them. “Don’t you know that we entered into a contract at
the first of the year?”
They said they did.
“Suppose I should refuse to keep my part of it? I owe you now one-half
your wages for the last three months. Suppose I should tell you that
some of the white folks around here were very mean, and so I wouldn’t
pay you?”
They thought he’d nebber do nuffin o’ dat sort.
“Well, then; if I have to keep my side of the contract you’ll have to
keep yours. You bargained to work here for a year. If you can prove that
I have ill-treated you, you can get off. If you can’t prove that, you’ve
got to go to work and keep at it through the year, or go to jail.”
“Well, we’s go to jail, den. Dat aint nuffin bad. I ’spec eberbody goes
to jail sometimes. I ’spec you been dere you’self, lots o’ times, Missah
——.”
A house servant was called, furnished a revolver, and told to take the
four at once to the agent of the Freedman’s Bureau. They repeated to him
the same story. They had no complaints to make; but “dey was mighty mean
niggers on dat plantation, an’ dey wouldn’t wuck dere.” The agent talked
to them a few moments; then sent the two women off to jail. They went
singing camp-meeting tunes, bidding good-by to their friends with great
ostentation, and putting the bravest possible face on it. But when they
found that their husbands were to occupy a separate cell, their courage
forsook them. Meantime their husbands were begging permission to go back
to work. After a good lecture to them, the agent finally consented.
Thereupon they began begging to have their wives let out.
“We’s make ’em wuck. If dey don’t, we’s whip ’em good. You juss try us.
Please, Missah Cap’en, please do. We’s whip ’em mighty hard, an’ make
’em wuck.”
Finally, on these conditions, the women were released and turned over to
their husbands. Whether they have been whipped much or not has not
appeared; but it is certain that they have given the planter no further
trouble.
The men all claim this privilege to beat their wives, and the women
freely concede it. In fact they seem to have less affection for a man,
unless he occasionally establishes his superiority by whipping them. The
men actually believe that a woman loves her husband all the better for
an occasional beating; and certainly the facts would seem to warrant
their theory. I have known cases in which the whole force was aroused at
night by the noise in some cabin, where a man was beating his wife—she
resisting, screaming, threatening, and finally seizing a knife and
rushing after him. Next morning I have seen such couples as loving and
bright as though their honeymoon was just beginning.
Sometimes, however, their quarrels become serious. I saw one case in
which an overseer was aroused in the night by a repentant husband, who
said he’d been whipping his wife a little and he was afeard he’d a most
done killed her. She was badly bruised, and for a week or more she
required medical attention. In another case, on the same plantation, a
man’s wife in a fit of jealousy attacked his sweetheart. The latter
proved the stronger, and absolutely cut the wife’s head open with a hoe,
so that for weeks she was unable to go into the field. But, in the main,
they are surprisingly orderly, and cases of serious violence among them
are quite rare.