Two questions are concerned in the social problem of our time. One is,
Will the people of African descent work for a living? and the other is,
Will they fight for their freedom? An affirmative answer to these must
be put beyond any fair dispute before they will receive permanent
security in law or opinion. Whatever may be the theses of philosophers
or the instincts of the justest men, the general sense of mankind is not
likely to accord the rights of complete citizenship to a race of
paupers, or to hesitate in imposing compulsory labor on those who have
not industry sufficient to support themselves. Nor, in the present
development of human nature, is the conscience of great communities
likely to be so pervasive and controlling as to restrain them from
disregarding the rights of those whom it is perfectly safe to injure,
because they have not the pluck to defend themselves. Sentiment may be
lavished upon them in poetry and tears, but it will all be wasted. Like
all unprivileged classes before them, they will have their full
recognition as citizens and men when they have vindicated their title to
be an estate of the realm, and not before. Let us, then, take the world
as we find it, and try this people accordingly. But it is not pertinent
to any practical inquiry of our time to predict what triumphs in art,
literature, or government they are to accomplish, or what romance is to
glow upon their history. No Iliad may be written of them and their woes.
No Plutarch may gather the lives of their heroes. No Vandyck may delight
to warm his canvas with their forms. How many or how few astronomers
like Banneker, chieftains like Toussaint, orators like Douglass they may
have, it is not worth while to conjecture. It is better to dismiss these
fanciful discussions. To vindicate their title to a fair chance in the
world as a free people, it is sufficient, and alone sufficient, that it
appear to reasonable minds that they are in good and evil very much like
the rest of mankind, and that they are endowed in about the same degree
with the conservative and progressive elements of character common to
ordinary humanity.
It is given to the people of this country and time, could they realise
it, to make a new chapter of human experience. The past may suggest, but
it can do little either in directing or deterring. There is nothing in
the gloomy vaticinations of Tocqueville, wise and benevolent as he is,
which should be permitted to darken our future. The mediæval antagonisms
of races, when Christianity threw but a partial light over mankind, and
before commerce had unfolded the harmony of interests among people of
diverse origin or condition, determine no laws which will fetter the
richer and more various development of modern life. Nor do the results
of emancipation in the West Indies, more or less satisfactory as they
may be, afford any measure of the progress which opens before our
enfranchised masses. The insular and contracted life of the colonies,
cramped also as they were by debt and absenteeism, has no parallel in
the grand currents of thought and activity ever sweeping through the
continent on which our problem is to be solved.
In the light of these views, the attempt shall be made to report
truthfully upon the freedmen at Port Royal. A word, however, as to the
name. Civilization, in its career, may often be traced in the
nomenclatures of successive periods. These people were first called
contrabands at Fortress Monroe; but at Port Royal, where they were next
introduced to us in any considerable number, they were generally
referred to as freedmen. These terms are milestones in our progress; and
they are yet to be lost in the better and more comprehensive designation
of citizens, or, when discrimination is convenient, citizens of African
descent.
The enterprise for the protection and development of the freedmen at
Port Royal has won its way to the regard of mankind. The best minds of
Europe, as well as the best friends of the United States, like Cairnes
and Gasparin, have testified much interest in its progress. An English
periodical of considerable merit noticed at some length "Mr. Pierce's
Ten Thousand Clients." In Parliament, Earl Russell noted it in its
incipient stage, as a reason why England should not intervene in
American affairs. The "Revue des Deux Mondes," in a recent number,
characterizes the colony as "that small pacific army, far more important
in the history of civilization than all the military expeditions
despatched from time to time since the commencement of the civil war."
* * * * *
No little historical interest covers the region to which this account
belongs. Explorations of the coast now known as that of the Carolinas,
Georgia, and Florida, involving the rival pretensions of Spain and
France, were made in the first half of the sixteenth century. They were
conducted by Ponce de Leon, Vasquez, Verrazani, and Soto, in search of
the fountain of perpetual youth, or to extend empire by right of
discovery. But no permanent settlement by way of colony or garrison was
attempted until 1562.
In that year,--the same in which he drew his sword for his faith, and
ten years before the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, in which he fell the
most illustrious victim,--Admiral Coligny, the great Protestant chief,
anxious to found beyond the seas a refuge for persecuted Huguenots,
fitted out the expedition of Jean Ribault, which, after a voyage of over
three months across the ocean and northward along the coast, cast anchor
on May 27th in the harbor of Port Royal, and gave it the name which it
retains to this day. That year was also to be ever memorable for another
and far different enterprise, which was destined to be written in dark
and perpetual lines on human history. Then it was that John Hawkins
sailed for Africa in quest of the first cargo of negroes ever brought to
the New World. The expedition of Ribault was the first visit of
Europeans to Port Royal or to any part of South Carolina, and the
garrison left by him was the first settlement under their auspices ever
made on this continent north of Mexico. There is not space or need to
detail here the mutiny and suffering of this military colony, their
abandonment of the post, the terrible voyage homeward, or the
perseverance of Coligny in his original purpose. Nor is it within the
compass of this narrative to recount the fortunes of the second
garrison, which was founded on the St. John's, the visit of John Hawkins
in 1565 with timely relief, the return of Ribault from France and his
sad fate, the ferocity of Melendez against all heretic Frenchmen, and
the avenging chivalry of Dominic de Gourges. The student is baffled in
attempts to fix localities for the deeds and explorations of this
period, even with the help of the several accounts and the drawings of
Le Moyne; and, besides, these later vicissitudes did not involve any
permanent occupation as far north as Port Royal, that region having been
abandoned by the French, and being then visited by the Spanish only for
trade or adventure.
Some merchants of Barbados, in 1663, sent William Hilton and other
commissioners to Florida, then including Port Royal, to explore the
country with reference to an emigration thither. Hilton's Narration,
published in London the year after, mentions St. Ellens as one of the
points visited, meaning St. Helena, but probably including the Sea
Islands under that name. The natives were found to speak many Spanish
words, and to be familiar enough with the report of guns not to be
alarmed by it. The commissioners, whose explorations were evidently
prompted by motives of gain, close a somewhat glowing description of the
country by saying, "And we could wish that all they that want a happy
settlement of our English nation were well transported thither."
Hitherto England had borne no part in exploring this region. But,
relieved of her civil wars by the Restoration, she began to seek
colonial empire on the southern coast of North America. In 1663, Charles
II. granted a charter to Clarendon, Monk, Shaftsbury,--each famous in
the conflicts of those times,--and to their associates, as proprietors
of Carolina. The genius of John Locke, more fitted for philosophy than
affairs, devised a constitution for the colony,--an idle work, as it
proved. In 1670, the first emigrants, under Governor William Sayle,
arrived at Port Royal, with the purpose to remain there; but, disturbed
probably with apprehensions of Spanish incursions from Florida, they
removed to the banks of the Ashley, and, after another change of site,
founded Charleston.
In 1682, a colony from Scotland under Lord Cardross was founded at Port
Royal, but was driven away four years later by the Spanish. No permanent
settlement of the Beaufort district appears to have succeeded until
1700. This district is divided into four parishes, St. Peter's, St.
Luke's, St. Helena, and Prince William, being fifty-eight miles long and
thirty-two broad, and containing 1,224,960 acres. St. Helena parish
includes the islands of St. Helena, Ladies, Port Royal, Paris, and a few
smaller islands, which, together with Hilton Head, make the district
occupied by our forces. The largest and most populous of these islands
is St. Helena, being fifteen miles long and six or seven broad,
containing fifty plantations and three thousand negroes, and perhaps
more since the evacuation of Edisto. Port Royal is two-thirds or
three-quarters the size of St. Helena, Ladies half as large, and Hilton
Head one-third as large. Paris, or Parry, has five plantations, and
Coosaw, Morgan, Cat, Cane, and Barnwell have each one or two. Beaufort
is the largest town in the district of that name, and the only one at
Port Royal in our possession. Its population, black and white, in time
of peace may have been between two and three thousand. The first lots
were granted in 1717. Its Episcopal church was built in 1720. Its
library was instituted in 1802, had increased in 1825 to six or eight
hundred volumes, and when our military occupation began contained about
thirty-five hundred.
The origin of the name Port Royal, given to a harbor at first and since
to an island, has already been noted. The name of St. Helena, applied to
a sound, a parish, and an island, originated probably with the
Spaniards, and was given by them in tribute to Saint Helena, the mother
of Constantine the Great, whose day in the calendar is August 18th.
Broad River is the equivalent of La Grande, which was given by Ribault.
Hilton Head may have been derived from Captain Hilton, who came from
Barbados. Coosaw is the name of a tribe of Indians. Beaufort is likely
to have been so called for Henry, Duke of Beauford, one of the lord
proprietors, while Carolina was a province of Great Britain.
The Beaufort District is not invested with any considerable
Revolutionary romance. In 1779, the British forces holding Savannah sent
two hundred troops with a howitzer and two field-pieces to Beaufort.
Four companies of militia from Charleston with two field-pieces,
reinforced by a few volunteers from Beaufort, repulsed and drove them
off. The British made marauding incursions from Charleston in 1782, and
are said to have levied a military contribution on St. Helena and Port
Royal Islands.
There are the remains of Indian mounds and ancient forts on the islands.
One of these last, it is said, can be traced on Paris Island, and is
claimed by some antiquaries to be the Charles Fort built by Ribault.
There are the well-preserved walls of one upon the plantation of John J.
Smith on Port Royal Island, a few miles south of Beaufort, now called
Camp Saxton, and recently occupied by Colonel Higginson's regiment. It
is built of cemented oyster-shells. Common remark refers to it as a
Spanish fort, but it is likely to be of English construction. The site
of Charles Fort is claimed for Beaufort, Lemon Island, Paris Island, and
other points.
The Sea Islands are formed by the intersection of the creeks and arms of
the sea. They have a uniform level, are without any stones, and present
a rather monotonous and uninteresting scenery, spite of the raptures of
French explorers. The creeks run up into the islands at numerous points,
affording facilities for transportation by flats and boats to the
buildings which are usually near them. The soil is of a light, sandy
mould, and yields in the best seasons a very moderate crop, say fifteen
bushels of corn and one hundred or one hundred and thirty pounds of
ginned cotton to the acre,--quite different from the plantations in
Mississippi and Texas, where an acre produces five or six hundred
pounds. The soil is not rich enough for the cultivated grasses, and one
finds but little turf. The coarse saline grasses, gathered in stacks,
furnish the chief material for manure. The long-fibred cotton peculiar
to the region is the result of the climate, which is affected by the
action of the salt water upon the atmosphere by means of the creeks
which permeate the land in all directions. The seed of this cotton,
planted on the upland, will produce in a few years the cotton of coarser
texture; and the seed of the latter, planted on the islands, will in a
like period produce the finer staple. The Treasury Department secured
eleven hundred thousand pounds from the islands occupied by our forces,
including Edisto, being the crop, mostly unginned, and gathered in
storehouses, when our military occupation began.
The characteristic trees are the live-oak, its wood almost as heavy as
lignum-vitæ, the trunk not high, but sometimes five or six feet in
diameter, and extending its crooked branches far over the land, with the
long, pendulous, funereal moss adhering to them,--and the palmetto,
shooting up its long, spongy stem thirty or forty feet, unrelieved by
vines or branches, with a disproportionately small cap of leaves at the
summit, the most ungainly of trees, albeit it gives a name and
coat-of-arms to the State. Besides these, are the pine, the red and
white oak, the cedar, the bay, the gum, the maple, and the ash. The soil
is luxuriant with an undergrowth of impenetrable vines. These
interlacing the trees, supported also by shrubs, of which the cassena is
the most distinguished variety, and faced with ditches, make the
prevailing fences of the plantations. The hedges are adorned in March
and April with the yellow jessamine, (_jelseminum_,)--the cross-vine
(_bignonia_,) with its mass of rich red blossoms,--the Cherokee rose,
(_loevigata_,) spreading out in long waving wreaths of white,--and, two
months later, the palmetto royal, (_yucca gloriosa_,) which protects the
fence with its prickly leaves, and delights the eyes with its
pyramid-like clusters of white flowers. Some of these trees and shrubs
serve a utilitarian end in art and medicine. The live-oak is famous in
shipbuilding. The palmetto, or cabbage-palmetto, as it is called,
resists destruction by worms, and is used for facing wharves. It was
employed to protect Fort Moultrie in 1776, when bombarded by the British
fleet; and the cannon-balls were buried in its spongy substance. The
moss (_tillandsia usneoides_) served to calk the rude vessel of the
first French colonists, longing for home. It may be used for bedding
after its life has been killed by boiling water, and for the subsistence
of cattle when destitute of other food. The cassena is a powerful
diuretic.
The game and fish, which are both abundant and of desirable kinds, and
to the pursuit of which the planters were much addicted, are described
in Eliot's book. Russell's "Diary" may also be consulted in relation to
fishing for devil and drum.
The best dwellings in Beaufort are capacious, with a piazza on the first
and second stories, through each of which runs a large hall to admit a
free circulation of air. Only one, however, appeared to have been built
under the supervision of a professional architect. Those on the
plantations, designed for the planters or overseers, were, with a few
exceptions, of a very mean character, and a thriving mechanic in New
England would turn his back on them as unfit to live in. Their yards are
without turf, having as their best feature a neighboring grove of
orange-trees. One or two dwellings only appear to be ancient. Indeed,
they are not well enough built to last long. The estates upon Edisto
Island are of a more patrician character, and are occasionally
surrounded by spacious flower-gardens and ornamental trees fancifully
trimmed.
The names of the planters indicated mainly an English origin, although
some may be traced to Huguenot families who sought a refuge here from
the religious persecutions of France.
The deserted houses were generally found strewn with religious
periodicals, mainly Baptist magazines. This characteristic of Southern
life has been elsewhere observed in the progress of our army.
Occasionally some book denouncing slavery as criminal and ruinous was
found among those left behind. One of these was Hewatt's history of
South Carolina, published in 1779, and reprinted in Carroll's
collection. Another was Gregoire's vindication of the negro race and
tribute to its distinguished examples, translated by Warden in 1810.
These people seem, indeed, to have had light enough to see the infinite
wrong of the system, and it is difficult to believe them entirely
sincere in their passionate defence of it. Their very violence, when the
moral basis of slavery is assailed, seems to be that of a man who
distrusts the rightfulness of his daily conduct, has resolved to persist
in it, and therefore hates most of all the prophet who comes to confront
him for his misdeeds, and, if need be, to publish them to mankind.
Well-authenticated instances of cruelty to slaves were brought to notice
without being sought for. The whipping-tree is now often pointed out,
still showing the place where it was worn by the rope which bound the
sufferer to it. On the plantation where my own quarters were was a woman
who had been so beaten when approaching the trials of maternity as to
crush out the life of the unborn child. But this planter had one
daughter who looked with horror on the scenes of which she was the
unwilling witness. She declared to her parents and sisters that it was
hell to live in such a place. She was accustomed to advise the negroes
how best to avoid being whipped. When the war began, she assured them
that the story of the masters that the Yankees were going to send them
to Cuba was all a lie. Surely a kind Providence will care for this noble
girl! This war will, indeed, emancipate others than blacks from bonds
which marriage and kindred have involved. But it is unpleasant to dwell
on these painful scenes of the past, constant and authentic as they are;
and they hardly concern the practical question which now presses for a
solution. Nor in referring to them is there any need of injustice or
exaggeration. Human nature has not the physical endurance or moral
persistence to keep up a perpetual and universal cruelty; and there are
fortunate slaves who never received a blow from their masters. Besides,
there was less labor exacted and less discipline imposed on the loosely
managed plantations of the Sea Islands than in other districts where
slave-labor was better and more profitably organized and directed.
The capture of Hilton Head and Bay Point by the navy, November 7th,
1861, was followed by the immediate military occupation of the Sea
Islands. In the latter part of December, the Secretary of the Treasury,
Mr. Chase, whose foresight as a statesman and humane disposition
naturally turned his thoughts to the subject, deputed a special agent to
visit this district for the purpose of reporting upon the condition of
the negroes who had been abandoned by the white population, and of
suggesting some plan for the organization of their labor and the
promotion of their general well-being. The agent, leaving New York
January 13th, 1862, reached that city again on his way to Washington on
the 13th of February, having in the mean time visited a large number of
the plantations, and talked familiarly with the negroes in their cabins.
The results of his observations, in relation to the condition of the
people, their capacities and wishes, the culture of their crops, and the
best mode of administration, on the whole favorable, were embodied in a
report. The plan proposed by him recommended the appointment of
superintendents to act as guides of the negroes and as local
magistrates, with an adequate corps of teachers. It was accepted by the
Secretary with a full indorsement, and its execution intrusted to the
same agent. The agent presented the subject to several members of
Congress, with whom he had a personal acquaintance, but, though they
listened respectfully, they seemed either to dread the magnitude of the
social question, or to feel that it was not one with which they as
legislators were called upon immediately to deal. The Secretary himself,
and Mr. Olmsted, then connected with the Sanitary Commission, alone
seemed to grasp it, and to see the necessity of immediate action. It is
doubtful if any member of the Cabinet, except Mr. Chase, took then any
interest in the enterprise, though it has since been fostered by the
Secretary of War. At the suggestion of the Secretary, the President
appointed an interview with the agent. Mr. Lincoln, who was then chafing
under a prospective bereavement, listened for a few moments, and then
said, somewhat impatiently, that he did not think he ought to be
troubled with such details,--that there seemed to be an itching to get
negroes into our lines; to which the agent replied, that these negroes
were within them by the invitation of no one, being domiciled there
before we commenced occupation. The President then wrote and handed to
the agent the following card:--
"I shall be obliged if the Sec. of the Treasury will in his discretion
give Mr. Pierce such instructions in regard to Port Royal contrabands as
may seem judicious.
"A. LINCOLN.
"Feb. 15, 1862."
The President, so history must write it, approached the great question
slowly and reluctantly; and in February, 1862, he little dreamed of the
proclamations he was to issue in the September and January following.
Perhaps that slowness and reluctance were well, for thereby it was given
to this people to work out their own salvation, rather than to be saved
by any chief or prophet.
Notwithstanding the plan of superintendents was accepted, there were no
funds wherewith to pay them. At this stage the "Educational Commission,"
organized in Boston on the 7th of February, and the "Freedmen's Relief
Association," organized in New York on the 20th of the same month,
gallantly volunteered to pay both superintendents and teachers, and did
so until July 1st, when the Government, having derived a fund from the
sale of confiscated cotton left in the territory by the Rebels,
undertook the payment of the superintendents, the two societies,
together with another organized in Philadelphia on the 3d of March, and
called the "Port Royal Relief Committee," providing for the support of
the teachers.
When these voluntary associations sprang into being to save an
enterprise which otherwise must have failed, no authoritative assurance
had been given as to the legal condition of the negroes. The Secretary,
in a letter to the agent, had said, that, after being received into our
service, they could not, without great injustice, be restored to their
masters, and should therefore be fitted to become self-supporting
citizens. The President was reported to have said freely, in private,
that negroes who were within our lines, and had been employed by the
Government, should be protected in their freedom. No official assurance
of this had, however, been given; and its absence disturbed the
societies in their formation. At one meeting of the Boston society
action was temporarily arrested by the expression of an opinion by a
gentleman present, that there was no evidence showing that these people,
when educated, would not be the victims of some unhappy compromise. A
public meeting in Providence, for their relief, is said to have broken
up without action, because of a speech from a furloughed officer of a
regiment stationed at Port Royal, who considered such a result the
probable one. But the societies, on reflection, wisely determined to do
what they could to prepare them to become self-supporting citizens, in
the belief, that, when they had become such, no Government could ever be
found base enough to turn its back upon them. These associations, it
should be stated, have been managed by persons of much consideration in
their respective communities, of unostentatious philanthropy, but of
energetic and practical benevolence, hardly one of whom has ever filled
or been a candidate for a political office.
There was a pleasant interview at this time which may fitly be
mentioned. The venerable Josiah Quincy, just entered on his ninety-first
year, hearing of the enterprise, desired to see one who had charge of
it. I went to his chamber, where he had been confined to his bed for
many weeks with a fractured limb. He talked like a patriot who read the
hour and its duty. He felt troubled lest adequate power had not been
given to protect the enterprise,--said that but for his disability he
should be glad to write something about it, but that he was living "the
postscript of his life"; and as we parted, he gave his hearty
benediction to the work and to myself. Restored in a measure to
activity, he is still spared to the generation which fondly cherishes
his old age; and recently, at the organization of the Union Club, he
read to his fellow-citizens, gathering close about him and hanging on
his speech, words of counsel and encouragement.
On the morning of the 3d of March, 1862, the first delegation of
superintendents and teachers, fifty-three in all, of whom twelve were
women, left the harbor of New York, on board the United States
steam-transport Atlantic, arriving at Beaufort on the 9th. It was a
voyage never to be forgotten. The enterprise was new and strange, and it
was not easy to predict its future. Success or defeat might be in store
for us; and we could only trust in God that our strength would be equal
to our responsibilities. As the colonists approached the shores of South
Carolina, they were addressed by the agent in charge, who told them the
little he had learned of their duties, enjoined patience and humanity,
impressed on them the greatness of their work, the results of which were
to cheer or dishearten good men, to settle, perhaps, one way or the
other, the social problem of the age,--assuring them that never did a
vessel bear a colony on a nobler mission, not even the Mayflower, when
she conveyed the Pilgrims to Plymouth, that it would be a poorly written
history which should omit their individual names, and that, if faithful
to their trust, there would come to them the highest of all recognitions
ever accorded to angels or to men, in this life or the next,--"Inasmuch
as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto Me."
This first delegation of superintendents and teachers were distributed
during the first fortnight after their arrival at Beaufort, and at its
close they had all reached their appointed posts. They took their
quarters in the deserted houses of the planters. These had all left on
the arrival of our army, only four white men, citizens of South
Carolina, remaining, and none of those being slaveholders, except one,
who had only two or three slaves. Our operations were, therefore, not
interfered with by landed proprietors who were loyal or pretended to be
so. The negroes had, in the mean time, been without persons to guide and
care for them, and had been exposed to the careless and conflicting talk
of soldiers who chanced to meet them. They were also brought in
connection with some _employés_ of the Government, engaged in the
collection of cotton found upon the plantations, none of whom were doing
anything for their education, and most of whom were in favor of leasing
the plantations and the negroes upon them as _adscripti gleboe_ looking
forward to their restoration to their masters at the close of the war.
They were uncertain as to the intentions of the Yankees, and were
wondering at the confusion, as they called it. They were beginning to
plant corn in their patches, but were disinclined to plant cotton,
regarding it as a badge of servitude. No schools had been opened, except
one at Beaufort, which had been kept a few weeks by two freedmen, one
bearing the name of John Milton, under the auspices of the Rev. Dr.
Peck. This is not the place to detail the obstacles we met with, one
after another overcome,--the calumnies and even personal violence to
which we were subjected. These things occurred at an early period of our
struggle, when the nation was groping its way to light, and are not
likely to occur again. Let unworthy men sleep in the oblivion they
deserve, and let others of better natures, who were then blind, but now
see, not be taunted with their inconsiderate acts. The nickname of
Gibeonites, applied to the colonists, may, however, be fitly remembered.
It may now justly claim rank with the honored titles of Puritan and
Methodist. The higher officers of the army were uniformly respectful and
disposed to coöperation. One of these may properly be mentioned. Our
most important operations were in the district under the command of
Brigadier-General Isaac I. Stevens, an officer whose convictions were
not supposed to be favorable to the enterprise, and who, during the
political contest of 1860, had been the chairman of the National
Breckinridge Committee. But such was his honor as a gentleman, and his
sense of the duty of subordination to the wishes of the Government,
that his personal courtesies and official aid were never wanting. He
received his mortal wound at Chantilly, Virginia, on the first of
September following, and a braver and abler officer has not fallen in
the service.
Notwithstanding our work was commenced six weeks too late, and other
hindrances occurred, detailed in the second report of the agent, some
eight thousand acres of esculents,--a fair supply of food,--and some
four thousand five hundred acres of cotton (after a deduction for
over-estimates) were planted. This was done upon one hundred and
eighty-nine plantations, on which were nine thousand and fifty people,
of whom four thousand four hundred and twenty-nine were field-hands,
made up of men, women, and children, and equivalent, in the usual
classification and estimate of the productive capacity of laborers, to
three thousand eight hundred and five and one-half full hands. The
cotton-crop produced will not exceed sixty-five thousand pounds of
ginned cotton. Work enough was done to have produced five hundred
thousand pounds in ordinary times; but the immaturity of the pod,
resulting from the lateness of the planting, exposed it to the ravages
of the frost and the worm. Troops being ordered North, after the
disasters of the Peninsular campaign, Edisto was evacuated in the middle
of July, and thus one thousand acres of esculents, and nearly seven
hundred acres of cotton, the cultivation of which had been finished,
were abandoned. In the autumn, Major-General Mitchell required forty
tons of corn-fodder and seventy-eight thousand pounds of corn in the
ear, for army-forage. These are but some of the adverse influences to
which the agricultural operations were subjected.
It is fitting here that I should bear my testimony to the
superintendents and teachers commissioned by the associations. There was
as high a purpose and devotion among them as in any colony that ever
went forth to bear the evangel of civilization. Among them were some of
the choicest young men of New England, fresh from Harvard, Yale, and
Brown, from the divinity-schools of Andover and Cambridge,--men of
practical talent and experience. There were some of whom the world was
scarce worthy, and to whom, whether they are among the living or the
dead, I delight to pay the tribute of my respect and admiration.
Four of the original delegation have died. William S. Clark died at
Boston, April 25th, 1863, a consumptive when he entered on the work,
which he was obliged to leave six months before his death. He was a
faithful and conscientious teacher. Though so many months had passed
since he left these labors, their fascination was such that he dwelt
fondly upon them in his last days.
The colony was first broken by the death of Francis E. Barnard, at St.
Helena Island, October 18th, 1862. He was devoted, enthusiastic,--and
though not fitted, as it at first appeared, for the practical duties of
a superintendent, yet even in this respect disappointing me entirely. He
was an evangelist, also, and he preached with more unction than any
other the gospel of freedom,--always, however, enforcing the duties of
industry and self-restraint. He was never sad, but always buoyant and
trustful. He and a comrade were the first to be separated from the
company, while at Hilton Head, and before the rest went to
Beaufort,--being assigned to Edisto, which had been occupied less than a
month, and was a remote and exposed point; but he went fearlessly and
without question. The evacuation of Edisto in July, the heat, and the
labor involved in bringing away and settling his people at the village
on St. Helena Island, a summer resort of the former residents, where
were some fifty vacant houses, were too much for him. His excessive
exertions brought on malarious fever. This produced an unnatural
excitement, and at mid-day, under a hot sun, he rode about to attend to
his people. He died,--men, women, and children, for whom he had toiled,
filling the house with their sobs during his departing hours. His
funeral was thronged by them, his coffin strewn with flowers which they
and his comrades had plucked, and then his remains were borne to his
native town, where burial-rites were again performed in the old church
of Dorchester. Read his published journal, and find how a noble youth
can live fourscore years in a little more than one score. One high
privilege was accorded to him. He lived to hear of the immortal edict of
the twenty-second of September, by which the freedom of his people was
to be secured for all time to come.
Samuel D. Phillips was a young man of much religions feeling, though he
never advertised himself as having it, and a devout communicant of the
Episcopal Church. He was a gentleman born and bred, inheriting the
quality as well as adding to it by self-discipline. He had good
business-capacity, never complained of inconveniences, was humane, yet
not misled by sentiment, and he gave more of his time, otherwise
unoccupied, to teaching than almost any other superintendent. I was
recently asking the most advanced pupils of a school on St. Helena who
first taught them their letters, and the frequent answer was, "Mr.
Phillips." He was at home in the autumn for a vacation, was at the
funeral of Barnard in Dorchester, and though at the time in imperfect
health, he hastened back to his charge, feeling that the death of
Barnard, whose district was the same as his own, rendered his immediate
return necessary to the comfort of his people. He went,--but his health
never came back to him. His quarters were in the same house where
Barnard had died, and in a few days, on the 5th of December, he followed
him. He was tended in his sickness by the negroes, and one day, having
asked that his pillow might be turned, he uttered the words, "Thank
God," and died. There was the same grief as at Barnard's death, the same
funeral-rites at the St. Helena Church, and his remains were borne North
to bereaved relatives.
Daniel Bowe was an alumnus of Yale College, and a student of the Andover
Theological Seminary, not yet graduated when he turned from his
professional studies at the summons of Christian duty. He labored
faithfully as a superintendent, looking after the physical, moral, and
educational interests of his people. He had a difficult post, was
overburdened with labor, and perhaps had not the faculty of taking as
good care of himself as was even consistent with his duties. He came
home in the summer, commended the enterprise and his people to the
citizens and students of Andover, and returned. He afterwards fell ill,
and, again coming North, died October 30th, a few days after reaching
New York. The young woman who was betrothed to him, but whom he did not
live to wed, has since his death sought this field of labor; and on my
recent visit I found her upon the plantation where he had resided,
teaching the children whom he had first taught, and whose parents he had
guided to freedom. Truly, the age of Christian romance has not passed
away!
* * * * *
On the first of July, 1862, the administration of affairs at Port Royal
having been transferred from the Treasury to the War Department, the
charge of the freedmen passed into the hands of Brigadier-General Rufus
Saxton, a native of Massachusetts, who in childhood had breathed the
free air of the valley of the Connecticut, a man of sincere and humane
nature; and under his wise and benevolent care they still remain. The
Sea Islands, and also Fernandina and St. Augustine in Florida, are
within our lines in the Department of the South, and some sixteen or
eighteen thousand negroes are supposed to be under his jurisdiction.
The negroes of the Sea Islands, when found by us, had become an abject
race, more docile and submissive than those of any other locality. The
native African was of a fierce and mettlesome temper, sullen and
untamable. The master was obliged to abate something of the usual rigor
in dealing with the imported slaves. A tax-commissioner, now at Port
Royal, and formerly a resident of South Carolina, told me that a native
African belonging to his father, though a faithful man, would
perpetually insist on doing his work in his own way, and being asked the
threatening question, "A'n't you going to mind?" would answer, with
spirit, "No, a'n't gwine to!" and the master desisted! Severe discipline
drove the natives to the wilderness, or involved a mutilation of person
which destroyed their value for proprietary purposes. In 1816, eight
hundred of these refugees were living free in the swamps and everglades
of Florida. There the ancestors of some of them had lived ever since the
early part of the eighteenth century, rearing families, carrying on
farms, and raising cattle. They had two hundred and fifty men fit to
bear arms, led by chiefs brave and skilful. The story of the Exiles of
Florida is one of painful interest. The testimony of officers of the
army who served against them is, that they were more dangerous enemies
than the Indians, fighting the most skilfully and standing the longest.
The tax-commissioner before referred to, who was a resident of
Charleston during the trial and execution of the confederates of Denmark
Vesey, relates that one of the native Africans, when called to answer to
the charge against him, haughtily responded,--"_I was a prince in my
country, and have as much right to be free as you!_" The Carolinians
were so awe-struck by his defiance that they transported him. Another,
at the execution, turned indignantly to a comrade about to speak, and
said, "_Die silent, as I do!_" and the man hushed. The early newspapers
of Georgia recount the disturbances on the plantations occasioned by
these native Africans, and even by their children, being not until the
third generation reduced to obedient slaves.
Nowhere has the deterioration of the negroes from their native manhood
been carried so far as on these Sea Islands,--a deterioration due to
their isolation from the excitements of more populous districts, the
constant surveillance of the overseers, and their intermarriage with
each other, involving a physical degeneracy with which inexorable Nature
punishes disobedience to her laws. The population with its natural
increase was sufficient for the cultivation of the soil under existing
modes, and therefore no fresh blood was admitted, such as is found
pouring from the Border States into the sugar and cotton regions of the
Southwest. This unmanning and depravation of the native character had
been carried so far, that the special agent, on his first exploration,
in January, 1862, was obliged to confess the existence of a general
disinclination to military service on the part of the negroes; though it
is true that even then instances of courage and adventure appeared,
which indicated that the more manly feeling was only latent, to be
developed under the inspiration of events. And so, let us rejoice, it
has been. You may think yourself wise, as you note the docility of a
subject race; but in vain will you attempt to study it until the burden
is lifted. The slave is unknown to all, even to himself, while the
bondage lasts. Nature is ever a kind mother. She soothes us with her
deceits, not in surgery alone, when the sufferer, else writhing in pain,
is transported with the sweet delirium, but she withholds from the
spirit the sight of her divinity until her opportunity has come. Not
even Tocqueville or Olmsted, much less the master, can measure the
capacities and possibilities of the slave, until the slave himself is
transmuted to a man.
* * * * *
My recent visit to Port Royal extended from March 25th to May 10th. It
was pleasant to meet the first colonists, who still toiled at their
posts, and specially grateful to receive the welcome of the freedmen,
and to note the progress they had made. There were interesting scenes to
fill the days. I saw an aged negro, Cæsar by name, not less than one
hundred years old, who had left children in Africa, when stolen away.
The vicissitudes of such a life were striking,--a free savage in the
wilds of his native land, a prisoner on a slave-ship, then for long
years a toiling slave, now again a freeman under the benign edict of the
President,--his life covering an historic century. A faithful and
industrious negro, Old Simon, as we called him, hearing of my arrival,
rode over to see me, and brought me a present of two or three quarts of
pea-nuts and some seventeen eggs. I had an interview with Don Carlos,
whom I had seen in May, 1862, at Edisto, the faithful attendant upon
Barnard, and who had been both with him and Phillips during their last
hours,--now not less than seventy years of age, and early in life a
slave in the Alston family, where he had known Theodosia Burr, the
daughter of Aaron Burr, and wife of Governor Alston. He talked
intelligently upon her personal history and her mysterious fate. He had
known John Pierpont, when a teacher in the family of Colonel Alston, and
accompanying the sons on their way North to college after the completion
of their preparatory studies. Pierpont was a classmate of John C.
Calhoum at Yale College, and, upon graduating, went South as a private
tutor.
Aunt Phillis was not likely to be overlooked,--an old woman, with much
power of expression, living on the plantation where my quarters had
formerly been. The attack on Charleston was going on, and she said, "If
you're as long beating Secesh everywhere as you have been in taking the
town, guess it'll take you some time!" Indeed, the negroes had somewhat
less confidence in our power than at first, on account of our not having
followed up the capture of Bay Point and Hilton Head. The same quaint
old creature, speaking of the disregard of the masters for the feelings
of the slaves, said, with much emphasis, "They thought God was dead!"
I visited Barnwell Island, the only plantation upon which is that of
Trescot, formerly Secretary of Legation at London, a visit to whom
Russell describes in his "Diary." But the mansion is not now as when
Russell saw it. Its large library is deposited in the Smithsonian
Institution at Washington. Its spacious rooms in the first and second
stories, together with the attics, are all filled with the families of
negro refugees. From this point, looking across the water, we could see
a cavalry-picket of the Rebels. The superintendent who had charge of the
plantation, and accompanied me, was Charles Follen, an inherited name,
linked with the struggles for freedom in both hemispheres.
The negro graveyards occasionally attracted me from the road. They are
usually in an open field, under a clump of some dozen or twenty trees,
perhaps live-oaks, and not fenced. There may be fifty or a hundred
graves, marked only by sticks eighteen inches or two feet high and about
as large as the wrist. Mr. Olmsted saw some stones in a negro graveyard
at Savannah, erected by the slaves, and bearing rather illiterate
inscriptions; but I never succeeded in finding any but wooden memorials,
not even at Beaufort. Only in one case could I find an inscription, and
that was in a burial-place on Ladies Island. There was a board at the
head of the grave, shaped something like an ordinary gravestone, about
three feet high and six inches wide. The inscription was as follows:--
OLd Jiw
de PArt his
Life on the
2 of WAY
Re st frow
LAuer