CHAPTER V.

SLAVERY IN ITS PROPERTY ASPECT—MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION OF THE

SLAVES, ETC.

In a hilly part of Alabama, fifty miles north of the principal

cotton-growing districts of that State, I happened to have a tradesman

of the vicinity for a travelling companion, when, in passing an

unusually large cluster of negro cabins, he called my attention to

a rugged range of hills behind them which, he said, was a favourite

lurking-ground for runaway negroes. It afforded them numerous coverts

for concealment during the day, and at night the slaves of the

plantation we were passing would help them to find the necessaries of

existence. He had seen folks who had come here to look after niggers

from plantations two hundred miles to the south, ward. “I suppose,”

said he, “’t would seem kind o’ barbarous to you to see a pack of

hounds after a human being?”

“Yes, it would.”

“Some fellows take as much delight in it as in runnin’ a fox. Always

seemed to me a kind o’ barbarous sport.” [A pause.] “It’s necessary,

though.”

“I suppose it is. Slavery is a custom of society which has come to us

from a barbarous people, and, naturally, barbarous practices have to be

employed to maintain it.”

“Yes, I s’pose that’s so. But niggers is generally pretty well

treated, considering. Some people work their niggers too hard, that’s

a fact. I know a man at ——; he’s a merchant there, and I have had

dealings with him; he’s got three plantations, and he puts the hardest

overseers he can get on them. He’s all the time a’ buying niggers,

and they say around there he works ’em to death. On these small

plantations, niggers ain’t very often whipped bad; but on them big

plantations, they’ve got to use ’em hard to keep any sort of control

over ’em. The overseers have to always go about armed; their life

wouldn’t be safe, if they didn’t. As ’tis, they very often get cut

pretty bad.” (Cutting is knifing; it may be stabbing, in south-western

parlance).

He went on to describe what he had seen on some large plantations which

he had visited for business purposes—indications, as he thought, in the

appearance of “the people,” that they were being “worked to death.”

“These rich men,” he said, “are always bidding for the overseer who

will make the most cotton; and a great many of the overseers didn’t

care for anything but to be able to say they’ve made so many bales in

a year. If they make plenty of cotton, the owners never ask how many

niggers they kill.”

I suggested that this did not seem quite credible; a negro was a

valuable piece of property. It would be foolish to use him in such a

way.

“Seems they don’t think so,” he answered. “They are always bragging—you

must have heard them—how many bales their overseer has made, or how

many their plantation has made to a hand. They never think of anything

else. You see, if a man did like to have his niggers taken care of, he

couldn’t bear to be always hearing that all the plantations round had

beat his. He’d think the fault was in his overseer. The fellow who can

make the most cotton always gets paid the best.”

Overseers’ wages were ordinarily from $200 to $600, but a real driving

overseer would very often get $1,000. Sometimes they’d get $1,200 or

$1,500. He heard of $2,000 being paid one fellow. A determined and

perfectly relentless man—I can’t recall his exact words, which were

very expressive—a real devil of an overseer, would get almost any wages

he’d ask; because, when it was told round that such a man had made so

many bales to the hand, everybody would be trying to get him.

The man who talked in this way was a native Alabamian, ignorant, but

apparently of more than ordinarily reflective habits, and he had been

so situated as to have unusually good opportunities for observation.

In character, if not in detail, I must say that his information was

entirely in accordance with the opinions I should have been led to form

from the conversations I heard by chance, from time to time, in the

richest cotton districts. That his statements as to the bad management

of large plantations, in respect to the waste of negro property, were

not much exaggerated, I find frequent evidence in southern agricultural

journals. The following is an extract from one of a series of essays

published in _The Cotton Planter_, the chief object of which is to

persuade planters that they are under no necessity to employ slaves

exclusively in the production of cotton. The writer, Mr. M. W.

Phillips, is a well-known, intelligent, and benevolent planter, who

resides constantly on his estate, near Jackson, Mississippi:—

“I have known many in the rich planting portion of Mississippi

especially, and others elsewhere, who, acting on the policy of

the boy in the fable, who ‘killed the goose for the golden egg,’

accumulated property, yet among those who have relied solely on

their product in land and negroes, I doubt if this be the true

policy of plantation economy. With the former everything has to

bend, give way to large crops of cotton, land has to be cultivated

wet or dry, negroes to work, cold or hot. Large crops planted, and

they must be cultivated, or done so after a manner. When disease

comes about, as, for instance, cholera, pneumonia, flux, and

other violent diseases, these are more subject, it seemeth to me,

than others, or even if not, there is less vitality to work on,

and, therefore, in like situations and similar in severity, they

must sink with more certainty; or even should the animal economy

rally under all these trials, the neglect consequent upon this

‘cut and cover’ policy must result in greater mortality. Another

objection, not one-fourth of the children born are raised, and

perhaps not over two-thirds are born on the place, which, under a

different policy, might be expected. And this is not all: hands,

and teams, and land must wear out sooner; admitting this to be

only one year sooner in twenty years, or that lands and negroes

are less productive at forty than at forty-two, we see a heavy

loss. Is this not so? I am told of negroes not over thirty-five

to forty-five, who look older than others at forty-five to

fifty-five. I know a man now, not short of sixty, who might

readily be taken for forty-five; another on the same place full

fifty (for I have known both for twenty-eight years, and the last

one for thirty-two years), who could be sold for thirty-five,

and these negroes are very leniently dealt with. Others, many

others, I know and have known twenty-five to thirty years, of whom

I can speak of as above. As to rearing children, I can point to

equally as strong cases; ay, men who are, ‘as it were,’ of one

family, differing as much as four and eight bales in cropping, and

equally as much in raising young negroes. The one scarcely paying

expenses by his crop, yet in the past twenty-five years raising

over seventy-five to a hundred negroes, the other buying more than

raised, and yet not as many as the first.

“I regard the ‘just medium’ to be the correct point. Labour is

conducive to health; a healthy woman will rear most children. I

favour good and fair work, yet not overworked so as to tax the

animal economy, that the woman cannot rear healthy children, nor

should the father be over-wrought, that his vital powers be at all

infringed upon.

“If the policy be adopted, to make an improvement in land visible,

to raise the greatest number of healthy children, to make an

abundance of provision, to rear a portion at least of work horses,

rely on it we will soon find by our tax list that our country is

improving. * * *

“Brethren of the South, we must change our policy. _Overseers are

not interested in raising children, or meat, in improving land, or

improving productive qualities of seed, or animals. Many of them

do not care whether property has depreciated or improved, so they

have made a crop [of cotton] to boast of._

“As to myself, I care not who has the credit of making crops at

Log Hall; and I would prefer that an overseer, who has been one

of my family for a year or two, or more, should be benefited;

but this thing is to be known and well understood. I plant such

fields in such crops as I see fit; I plant acres in corn, cotton,

oats, potatoes, etc., as I select, and the general policy of

rest, cultivation, etc., must be preserved which I lay down. A

self-willed overseer may fraudulently change somewhat in the

latter, by not carrying out orders—that I cannot help. What I have

written, I have written, and think I can substantiate.”

From the _Southern Agriculturist_, vol. iv., page 317:—

“OVERSEERS.

* * * “When they seek a place, they rest their claims entirely

on the number of bags they have heretofore made to the hand, and

generally the employer unfortunately recognizes the justice of

such claims.

“No wonder, then, that the overseer desires to have entire control

of the plantation. No wonder he opposes all experiments, or, if

they are persisted in, neglects them; _presses everything at the

end of the lash; pays no attention to the sick, except to keep

them in the field as long as possible; and drives them out again

at the first moment, and forces sucklers and breeders to the

utmost. He has no other interest than to make a big cotton crop._

And if this does not please you, and induce you to increase his

wages, he knows men it will please, and secure him a situation

with.”

From the Columbia _South Carolinian_:—

* * * “Planters may be divided into two great classes, viz., those

who attend to their business, and those who do not. And this

creates corresponding classes of overseers. The planter who does

not manage his own business must, of course, surrender everything

into the hands of his overseer. Such a planter usually rates the

merits of the overseer exactly in proportion to the number of bags

of cotton he makes, and of course the overseer cares for nothing

but to make a large crop. To him it is of no consequence that

the old hands are worked down, or the young ones overstrained;

that the breeding women miscarry, and the sucklers lose their

children; that the mules are broken down, the plantation tools

destroyed, the stock neglected, and the lands ruined: _so that

he has the requisite number of cotton bags, all is overlooked_;

he is re-employed at an advanced salary, and his reputation

increased. Everybody knows that by such a course, a crop may be

increased by the most inferior overseer, in any given year, unless

his predecessors have so entirely exhausted the resources of the

plantation, that there is no part of the capital left which can

be wrought up into current income. * * * Having once had the

sole management of a plantation, and imbibed the idea that the

only test of good planting is to make a large crop of cotton, an

overseer becomes worthless. He will no longer obey orders; he

will not stoop to details; he scorns all improvements, and _will

not_ adopt any other plan of planting than simply to work lands,

negroes, and mules to the top of their bent, which necessarily

proves fatal to every employer who will allow it.

“It seems scarcely credible, that any man owning a plantation

will so abandon it and his people on it entirely to a hireling, no

matter what his confidence in him is. Yet there are numbers who

do it habitually; and I have even known overseers to stipulate

that their employers should not give any order, nor interfere

in any way with their management of the plantation. There are

also some proprietors of considerable property and pretension to

being planters, who give their overseer a proportion of the crop

for his wages; thus bribing him by the strongest inducements of

self-interest, to overstrain and work down everything committed to

his charge.

“No planter, who attends to his own business, can dispense with

agents and sub-agents. It is impossible, on a plantation of any

size, for the proprietor to attend to all the details, many of

which are irksome and laborious, and he requires more intelligence

to assist him than slaves usually possess. To him, therefore, a

good overseer is a blessing. But an overseer who would answer the

views of such a planter is most difficult to find. The men engaged

in that occupation who combine the most intelligence, industry,

and character, are allured into the service of those who place all

power in their hands, and are ultimately spoiled.”

An English traveller writes to the London _Daily News_ from Mississippi

(1857):—

“On crossing the Big Block river, I left the sandhills and began

to find myself in the rich loam of the valley of the Mississippi.

The plantations became larger, the clearings more numerous and

extensive, and the roads less hilly, but worse. Along the Yazoo

river one meets with some of the richest soil in the world, and

some of the largest crops of cotton in the Union. My first night

in that region was passed at the house of a planter who worked

but few hands, was a fast friend of slavery, and yet drew for my

benefit one of the most mournful pictures of a slave’s life I have

ever met with. He said, and I believe truly, that the negroes of

small planters are, on the whole, well treated, or at least as

well as the owners can afford to treat them. Their master not

unfrequently works side by side with them in the fields. * * *

But on the large plantations, where the business is carried on by

an overseer, and everything is conducted with military strictness

and discipline, he described matters as being widely different.

_The future of the overseer depends altogether on the quantity of

cotton he is able to make up for the market._ Whether the owner be

resident or non-resident, if the plantation be large, and a great

number of hands be employed upon it, the overseer gets credit

for a large crop, and blame for a small one. His professional

reputation depends in a great measure upon the number of bales or

hogsheads he is able to produce, and neither his education nor

his habits are such as to render it likely that he would allow

any consideration for the negroes to stand in the way of his

advancing it. His interest is to get as much work out of them as

they can possibly perform. His skill consists in knowing exactly

how hard they may be driven without incapacitating them for future

exertion. The larger the plantation the less chance there is, of

course, of the owner’s softening the rigour of the overseer, or

the sternness of discipline by personal interference. So, as Mr.

H—— said, a vast mass of the slaves pass their lives, from the

moment they are able to go afield in the picking season till they

drop worn out into the grave, in incessant labour, in all sorts

of weather, at all seasons of the year, without any other change

or relaxation than is furnished by sickness, without the smallest

hope of any improvement either in their condition, in their food,

or in their clothing, which are of the plainest and coarsest

kind, and indebted solely to the forbearance or good temper of

the overseer for exemption from terrible physical suffering. They

are rung to bed at nine o’clock, almost immediately after bolting

the food which they often have to cook after coming home from

their day’s labour, and are rung out of bed at four or five in the

morning. The interval is one long round of toil. Life has no sunny

spots for them. Their only refuge or consolation in this world is

in their own stupidity and grossness. The nearer they are to the

beast, the happier they are likely to be. Any mental or moral rise

is nearly sure to bring unhappiness with it.”

The same gentleman writes from Columbus:—

“One gets better glimpses of the real condition of the negroes

from conversations one happens to overhear than from what is told

to one’s-self—above all, when one is known to be a stranger, and

particularly an Englishman. The cool way in which you hear the

hanging of niggers, the shooting of niggers, and the necessity for

severe discipline among niggers talked of in bar-rooms, speaks

volumes as to the exact state of the case. A negro was shot when

running away, near Greensboro’, a small town on my road, the day

before I passed through, by a man who had received instructions

from the owner to take him alive, and shoot him if he resisted. I

heard the subject discussed by some ‘loafers’ in the bar, while

getting my horse fed, and I found, to my no small—I do not know

whether to say horror or amusement—that the point in dispute

was not the degree of moral guilt incurred by the murderer, but

the degree of loss and damage for which he had rendered himself

liable to the owner of the slave in departing from the letter of

his commission. One of the group summed up the arguments on both

sides, by exclaiming, ‘Well, this shootin’ of niggers should be

put a stop to, that’s a fact.’ The obvious inference to be deduced

from this observation was, that ‘nigger shootin’’ was a slight

contravention of police regulations—a little of which might be

winked at, but which, in this locality, had been carried to such

an extent as to call for the interference of the law.”

I do not think that I have ever seen the sudden death of a negro

noticed in a Southern newspaper, or heard it referred to in

conversation, that the loss of property, rather than the extinction of

life, was not the evident occasion of interest. Turning over several

Southern papers at this moment, I fall at once upon these examples:—

“We are informed that a negro man, the property of Mr. William

Mays, of this city, was killed last Thursday by a youth, the son

of Mr. William Payne, of Campbell county. The following are the

circumstances, as we have received them. Two sons of Mr. Payne

were shooting pigeons on the plantation of Mr. Mays, about twenty

miles from this place, and went to the tobacco-house, where the

overseer and hands were housing tobacco; one of the boys had a

string of pigeons and the other had none. On reaching the house,

the negro who was killed asked the boy who had no pigeons, ‘where

his were.’ He replied that he killed none, but could kill him (the

negro), and raised his gun and fired. The load took effect in the

head, and caused death in a few hours. _The negro was a valuable

one. Mr. Mays had refused $1,200 for him._”—_Lynchburg Virginian._

“_A valuable negro boy, the property of_ W. A. Phipps, living in

the upper end of this county, was accidentally drowned in the

Holston river a few days ago.”—_Rogersville Times._

“Mr. Tilghman Cobb’s barn at Bedford, Va., was set fire to by

lightning on Friday, the 11th, and consumed. Two negroes and three

horses perished in the flames.”—_New Orleans Daily Crescent._

I have repeated these accounts, not to convey to the reader’s mind

the impression that slaves are frequently shot by their masters,

which would be, no doubt, a mistaken inference, but to show in what

manner I was made to feel, as I was very strongly in my journey, that

what we call the sacredness of human life, together with a great

range of kindred instincts, scarcely attaches at all, with most

white men, to the slaves, and also in order to justify the following

observation:—that I found the lives and the comfort of negroes, in the

rich cotton-planting districts especially, habitually regarded, by all

classes, much more from a purely pecuniary point of view than I had

ever before supposed they could be; and yet that, as property, negro

life and negro vigour were generally much less carefully economized

than I had always before imagined them to be.

As I became familiar with the circumstances, I saw reasons for this,

which, in looking from a distance, or through the eyes of travellers, I

had not been able adequately to appreciate. I will endeavour to state

them:—

It is difficult to handle simply as property, a creature possessing

human passions and human feelings, however debased and torpid the

condition of that creature may be; while, on the other hand, the

absolute necessity of dealing with property as a thing, greatly

embarrassed a man in any attempt to treat it as a person. And it is the

natural result of this complicated state of things, that the system of

slave-management is irregular, ambiguous, and contradictory; that it is

never either consistently humane or consistently economical.

As a general rule, the larger the body of negroes on a plantation or

estate, the more completely are they treated as mere property, and in

accordance with a policy calculated to insure the largest pecuniary

returns. Hence, in part, the greater proportionate profit of such

plantations, and the tendency which everywhere prevails in the planting

districts to the absorption of small, and the augmentation of large

estates. It may be true, that among the wealthier slave-owners there is

oftener a humane disposition, a better judgment, and a greater ability

to deal with their dependents indulgently and bountifully, but the

effects of this disposition are chiefly felt, even on those plantations

where the proprietor resides permanently, among the slaves employed

about the house and stables, and perhaps a few old favourites in the

quarters. It is more than balanced by the difficulty of acquiring

a personal interest in the units of a large body of slaves, and an

acquaintance with the individual characteristics of each. The treatment

of the mass must be reduced to a system, the ruling idea of which will

be, to enable one man to force into the same channel of labour the

muscles of a large number of men of various and often conflicting wills.

The chief difficulty is to overcome their great aversion to labour.

They have no objection to eating, drinking, and resting, when

necessary, and no general disinclination to receive instruction. If a

man own many slaves, therefore, the faculty which he values highest,

and pays most for, in an overseer, is that of making them work. Any

fool could see that they were properly supplied with food, clothing,

rest, and religious instruction.

The labourers we see in towns, at work on railroads and steamboats,

about stations and landings; the menials of our houses and hotels, are

less respectable, moral, and intelligent than the great majority of the

whole labouring class of the North. The traveller at the South has to

learn that there the reverse is the case to a degree which can hardly

be sufficiently estimated. I have been obliged to think that many

amiable travellers who have received impressions with regard to the

condition of the slaves very different from mine, have failed to make a

sufficient allowance for this. The rank-and-file plantation negroes are

not to be readily made acquaintance with by chance or through letters

of introduction.

I have described in detail, in former chapters, two large plantations,

which were much the best in respect to the happiness of the negroes, of

all that I saw in the South. I am now about to describe what I judged

to be the most profitable estate that I visited. In saying this I do

not compare it with others noticed in this chapter, my observations

of which were too superficial to warrant a comparison. It was

situated upon a tributary of the Mississippi, and accessible only by

occasional steamboats; even this mode of communication being frequently

interrupted at low stages of the rivers. The slaves upon it formed

about one twentieth of the whole population of the county, in which

the blacks considerably outnumber the whites. At the time of my visit,

the owner was sojourning upon it, with his family and several invited

guests, but his usual residence was upon a small plantation, of little

productive value, situated in a neighbourhood somewhat noted for the

luxury and hospitality of its citizens, and having a daily mail, and

direct railroad and telegraphic communication with New York. This was,

if I am not mistaken, his second visit in five years.

The property consisted of four adjoining plantations, each with its

own negro-cabins, stables, and overseer, and each worked to a great

extent independently of the others, but all contributing their crop to

one gin-house and warehouse, and all under the general superintendence

of a bailiff or manager, who constantly resided upon the estate, and

in the absence of the owner, had vice-regal power over the overseers,

controlling, so far as he thought fit, the economy of all the

plantations.

The manager was himself a gentleman of good education, generous and

poetic in temperament, and possessing a capacity for the enjoyment of

nature and a happiness in the bucolic life, unfortunately rare with

Americans. I found him a delightful companion, and I have known no

man with whose natural tastes and feelings I have felt, on so short

acquaintance, a more hearty sympathy. The gang of toiling negroes to

him, however, was as essential an element of the poetry of nature as

flocks of peaceful sheep and herds of lowing kine, and he would no more

appreciate the aspect in which an Abolitionist would see them, than

would Virgil have honoured the feelings of a vegetarian, sighing at the

sight of flocks and herds destined to feed the depraved appetite of the

carnivorous savage of modern civilization. The overseers were superior

to most of their class, and, with one exception, frank, honest,

temperate, and industrious, but their feelings toward negroes were such

as naturally result from their occupation. They were all married, and

lived with their families, each in a cabin or cottage, in the hamlet

of the slaves of which he had especial charge. Their wages varied from

$500 to $1,000 a year each.

These five men, each living more than a mile distant from either

of the others, were the only white men on the estate, and the only

others within several miles of them were a few skulking vagabonds.

Of course, to secure their own personal safety and to efficiently

direct the labour of such a large number of ignorant, indolent, and

vicious negroes, rules, or rather habits and customs, of discipline,

were necessary, which would in particular cases be liable to operate

unjustly and cruelly. It is apparent, also, that, as the testimony of

negroes against them would not be received as evidence in court, that

there was very little probability that any excessive severity would

be restrained by fear of the law. A provision of the law intended to

secure a certain privilege to slaves, was indeed disregarded under

my own observation, and such infraction of the law was confessedly

customary with one of the overseers, and was permitted by the manager,

for the reason that it seemed to him to be, in a certain degree,

justifiable and expedient under the circumstances, and because he did

not like to interfere unnecessarily in such matters.

In the main, the negroes appeared to be well taken care of and

abundantly supplied with the necessaries of vigorous physical

existence. A large part of them lived in commodious and well-built

cottages, with broad galleries in front, so that each family of five

had two rooms on the lower floor, and a loft. The remainder lived in

log huts, small and mean in appearance, but those of their overseers

were little better, and preparations were being made to replace all

of these by neat boarded cottages. Each family had a fowl-house and

hog-sty (constructed by the negroes themselves), and kept fowls and

swine, feeding the latter during the summer on weeds and fattening

them in the autumn on corn, _stolen_ (this was mentioned to me by

the overseers as if it were a matter of course) from their master’s

corn-fields. I several times saw gangs of them eating the dinner which

they had brought, each man for himself, to the field, and observed that

they generally had plenty, often more than they could eat, of bacon,

corn-bread, and molasses. The allowance of food is weighed and measured

under the eye of the manager by the drivers, and distributed to the

head of each family weekly: consisting of—for each person, 3 pounds of

pork, 1 peck of meal; and from January to July, 1 quart of molasses.

Monthly, in addition, 1 pound tobacco, and 4 pints salt. No drink is

ever served but water, except after unusual exposure, or to ditchers

working in water, who get a glass of whisky at night. All hands cook

for themselves after work at night, or whenever they please between

nightfall and daybreak, each family in its own cabin. Each family has

a garden, the products of which, together with eggs, fowls, and bacon,

they frequently sell, or use in addition to their regular allowance

of food. Most of the families buy a barrel of flour every year. The

manager endeavours to encourage this practice; and that they may spend

their money for flour instead of liquor, he furnishes it to them at

rather less than what it costs him at wholesale. There are many poor

whites within a few miles who will always sell liquor to the negroes,

and encourage them to steal, to obtain the means to buy it of them.

These poor whites are always spoken of with anger by the overseers, and

they each have a standing offer of much more than the intrinsic value

of their land, from the manager, to induce them to move away.

The negroes also obtain a good deal of game. They set traps for

raccoons, rabbits, and turkeys; and I once heard the stock-tender

complaining that he had detected one of the vagabond whites stealing

a turkey which had been caught in his pen. I several times partook of

game, while on the plantation, that had been purchased of the negroes.

The stock-tender, an old negro, whose business it was to ride about

in the woods and keep an eye on the stock cattle that were pastured

in them, and who was thus likely to know where the deer ran, had an

ingenious way of supplying himself with venison. He lashed a scythe

blade or butcher’s knife to the end of a pole so that it formed a

lance; this he set near a fence or fallen tree which obstructed a path

in which the deer habitually ran, and the deer in leaping over the

obstacle would leap directly on the knife. In this manner he had killed

two deer the week before my visit.

The manager sent to him for some of this venison for his own use, and

justified himself to me for not paying for it on the ground that the

stock-tender had undoubtedly taken time which really belonged to his

owner to set his spear. Game taken by the field-hands was not looked

upon in the same light, because it must have been got at night when

they were excused from labour for their owner.

The first morning I was on the estate, while at breakfast with the

manager, an old negro woman came into the room and said to him, “Dat

gal’s bin bleedin’ agin’ dis mornin’.”

“How much did she bleed?”

“About a pint, sir.”

“Very well; I’ll call and see her after breakfast.”

“I come up for some sugar of lead, masser; I gin her some powdered alum

’fore I come away.”

“Very well; you can have some.”

After breakfast the manager invited me to ride with him on his usual

daily round of inspection through the plantations.

On reaching the nearest “quarters,” we stopped at a house, a little

larger than the ordinary cabins, which was called the loom-house, in

which a dozen negroes were at work making shoes, and manufacturing

coarse cotton stuff for negro clothing. One of the hands so employed

was insane, and most of the others were cripples, invalids with chronic

complaints, or unfitted by age, or some infirmity, for field-work.

From this we went to one of the cabins, where we found the sick woman

who had been bleeding at the lungs, with the old nurse in attendance

upon her. The manager examined and prescribed for her in a kind manner.

When we came out he asked the nurse if any one else was sick.

“Oney dat woman Carline.”

“What do you think is the matter with her?”

“Well, I don’t tink dere’s anyting de matter wid her, masser; I mus’

answer you for true, I don’t tink anyting de matter wid her, oney she’s

a little sore from dat whippin’ she got.”

We went to another cabin and entered a room where a woman lay on a bed,

groaning. It was a dingy, comfortless room, but a musquito bar, much

patched and very dirty, covered the bed. The manager asked the woman

several times what was the matter, but could get no distinct reply. She

appeared to be suffering great pain. The manager felt her pulse and

looked at her tongue, and after making a few more inquiries, to which

no intelligible reply was given, told her he did not believe she was

ill at all. At this the woman’s groans redoubled. “I have heard of your

tricks,” continued the manager; “you had a chill when I came to see you

yesterday morning; you had a chill when the mistress came here, and

you had a chill when the master came. I never knew a chill to last the

whole day. So you’ll just get up now and go to the field, and if you

don’t work smart, you’ll get a dressing; do you hear?”

We then left. The manager said that he rarely—almost never—had

occasion to employ a physician for the people. Never for accouchements;

the women, from their labour in the field, were not subject to the

difficulty, danger, and pain which attended women of the better classes

in giving birth to their offspring. (I do not suppose that there was a

physician within a day’s journey of the plantations.)

Near the first quarters we visited there was a large blacksmith’s

and wheelwright’s shop, in which a number of mechanics were at work.

Most of them, as we rode up, were eating their breakfast, which they

warmed at their fires. Within and around the shop there were some fifty

ploughs which they were putting in order. The manager inspected the

work, found some of it faulty, sharply reprimanded the workmen for not

getting on faster, and threatened one of them with a whipping for not

paying closer attention to the directions which had been given him.

The overseer of this plantation rode up while we were at the shop, and

in a free and easy style, reported to the manager how all his hands

were employed. There were so many at this and so many at that, and they

had done so much since yesterday. “There’s that girl, Caroline,” said

the manager; “she’s not sick, and I told her she must go to work; put

her to the hoeing; there’s nothing the matter with her, except she’s

sore with the whipping she got. You must go and get her out.” A woman

passing at the time, the manager told her to go and tell Caroline she

must get up and go to work, or the overseer would come and start her.

She returned in a few minutes, and reported that Caroline said she

could not get up. The overseer and manager rode toward the cabin, but

before they reached it, the girl, who had probably been watching us

from the window, came out and went to the field with her hoe. They

then returned to me and continued their conversation. Just before we

left the overseer, he said, “I think that girl who ran away last week

was in her cabin last night.” The manager told me, as we rode on, that

the people often ran away after they have been whipped, or something

else had happened to make them angry. They hide in the swamp, and come

in to the cabins at night to get food. They seldom remain away more

than a fortnight, and when they come in they are whipped. The woman,

Caroline, he said, had been delivered of a dead child about six weeks

before, and had been complaining and getting rid of work ever since.

She was the laziest woman on the estate. This shamming illness gave him

the most disagreeable duty he had to perform. Negroes were famous for

it. “If it was not for her bad character,” he continued, “I should fear

to make her go to work to-day; but her pulse is steady, and her tongue

perfectly smooth. We have to be sharp with them; if we were not, every

negro on the estate would be a-bed.”

We rode on to where the different gangs of labourers were at work, and

inspected them one after another. I observed, as we were looking at one

of the gangs, that they were very dirty. “Negroes are the filthiest

people in the world,” said the manager; “there are some of them who

would not keep clean twenty-four hours at a time if you gave them

thirty suits a year.” I asked him if there were any rules to maintain

cleanliness. There were not, but sometimes the negroes were told at

night that any one who came into the field the next morning without

being clean would be whipped. This gave no trouble to those who were

habitually clean, while it was in itself a punishment to those who were

not, as they were obliged to spend the night in washing.

They were furnished with two suits of summer, and one of winter

clothing each year. Besides which, most of them got presents of holiday

finery (calico dresses, handkerchiefs, etc.), and purchased more for

themselves, at Christmas. One of the drivers now in the field had on a

uniform coat of an officer of artillery. After the Mexican war, a great

deal of military clothing was sold at auction in New Orleans, and much

of it was bought by the planters at a low price, and given to their

negroes, who were greatly pleased with it.

Each overseer regulated the hours of work on his own plantation. I

saw the negroes at work before sunrise and after sunset. At about

eight o’clock they were allowed to stop for breakfast, and again about

noon, to dine. The length of these rests was at the discretion of the

overseer or drivers, usually, I should say, from half an hour to an

hour. There was no rule.

The number of hands directed by each overseer was considerably over one

hundred. The manager thought it would be better economy to have a white

man over every fifty hands, but the difficulty of obtaining trustworthy

overseers prevented it. Three of those he then had were the best he

had ever known. He described the great majority as being passionate,

careless, inefficient men, generally intemperate, and totally unfitted

for the duties of the position. The best overseers ordinarily, are

young men, the sons of small planters, who take up the business

temporarily, as a means of acquiring a little capital with which to

purchase negroes for themselves.

The ploughs at work, both with single and double mule teams, were

generally held by women, and very well held, too. I watched with some

interest for any indication that their sex unfitted them for the

occupation. Twenty of them were ploughing together, with double teams

and heavy ploughs. They were superintended by a negro man who carried

a whip, which he frequently cracked at them, permitting no dawdling

or delay at the turning; and they twitched their ploughs around on

the head-land, jerking their reins, and yelling to their mules, with

apparent ease, energy, and rapidity. Throughout the South-west the

negroes, as a rule, appear to be worked much harder than in the Eastern

and Northern Slave States. I do not think they accomplish as much

in the same time as agricultural labourers at the North usually do,

but they certainly labour much harder, and more unremittingly. They

are constantly and steadily driven up to their work, and the stupid,

plodding, machine-like manner in which they labour, is painful to

witness. This was especially the case with the hoe-gangs. One of them

numbered nearly two hundred hands (for the force of two plantations was

working together), moving across the field in parallel lines, with a

considerable degree of precision. I repeatedly rode through the lines

at a canter, with other horsemen, often coming upon them suddenly,

without producing the smallest change or interruption in the dogged

action of the labourers, or causing one of them, so far as I could

see, to lift an eye from the ground. I had noticed the same thing with

smaller numbers before, but here, considering that I was a stranger,

and that strangers could but very rarely visit the plantation, it

amazed me very much. I think it told a more painful story than any

I had ever heard, of the cruelty of slavery. It was emphasized by a

tall and powerful negro who walked to and fro in the rear of the line,

frequently cracking his whip, and calling out in the surliest manner,

to one and another, “Shove your hoe, there! shove your hoe!” But I

never saw him strike any one with the whip.

The whip was evidently in constant use, however. There were no rules

on the subject, that I learned; the overseers and drivers punished the

negroes whenever they deemed it necessary, and in such manner, and with

such severity, as they thought fit. “If you don’t work faster,” or “If

you don’t work better,” or “If you don’t recollect what I tell you, I

will have you flogged,” I often heard. I said to one of the overseers,

“It must be disagreeable to have to punish them as much as you do?”

“Yes, it would be to those who are not used to it—but it’s my business,

and I think nothing of it. Why, sir, I wouldn’t mind killing a nigger

more than I would a dog.” I asked if he had ever killed a negro? “Not

quite that,” he said, but overseers were often obliged to. Some negroes

are determined never to let a white man whip them, and will resist you,

when you attempt it; of course you must kill them in that case.[24]

Once a negro, whom he was about to whip in the field, struck at his

head with a hoe. He parried the blow with his whip, and, drawing a

pistol, tried to shoot him; but the pistol missing fire, he rushed in

and knocked him down with the butt of it. At another time, a negro whom

he was punishing insulted and threatened him. He went to the house

for his gun, and as he was returning, the negro, thinking he would be

afraid of spoiling so valuable a piece of property by firing, broke for

the woods. He fired at once, and put six buck-shot into his hips. He

always carried a bowie-knife, but not a pistol unless he anticipated

some unusual act of insubordination. He always kept a pair of pistols

ready loaded over the mantel-piece, however, in case they should be

needed. It was only when he first came upon a plantation that he ever

had much trouble. A great many overseers were unfit for their business,

and too easy and slack with the negroes. When he succeeded such a man,

he had hard work for a time to break the negroes in; but it did not

take long to teach them their place. His conversation on the subject

was exactly like what I have heard said, again and again, by northern

shipmasters and officers, with regard to seamen.

I happened to see the severest corporeal punishment of a negro that I

witnessed at the South while visiting this estate. I suppose, however,

that punishment equally severe is common; in fact, it must be necessary

to the maintenance of adequate discipline on every large plantation.

It is much more necessary than on shipboard, because the opportunities

of hiding away and shirking labour, and of wasting and injuring the

owner’s property without danger to themselves, are far greater in

the case of the slaves than in that of the sailors, but, above all,

because there is no real moral obligation on the part of the negro to

do what is demanded of him. The sailor performs his duty in obedience

to a voluntary contract; the slave is in an involuntary servitude. The

manner of the overseer who inflicted the punishment, and his subsequent

conversation with me about it, indicated that it was by no means

unusual in severity. I had accidentally encountered him, and he was

showing me his plantation. In going from one side of it to the other,

we had twice crossed a deep gully, at the bottom of which was a thick

covert of brushwood. We were crossing it a third time, and had nearly

passed through the brush, when the overseer suddenly stopped his horse

exclaiming, “What’s that? Hallo! who are you, there?”

It was a girl lying at full length on the ground at the bottom of the

gully, evidently intending to hide herself from us in the bushes.

“Who are you, there?”

“Sam’s Sall, sir.”

“What are you skulking there for?”

The girl half rose, but gave no answer.

“Have you been here all day?”

“No, sir.”

“How did you get here?”

The girl made no reply.

“Where have you been all day?”

The answer was unintelligible.

After some further questioning, she said her father accidentally locked

her in, when he went out in the morning.

“How did you manage to get out?”

“Pushed a plank off, sir, and crawled out.”

The overseer was silent for a moment, looking at the girl, and then

said, “That won’t do; come out here.” The girl arose at once, and

walked towards him. She was about eighteen years of age. A bunch of

keys hung at her waist, which the overseer espied, and he said, “Your

father locked you in; but you have got the keys.” After a little

hesitation, she replied that these were the keys of some other locks;

her father had the door-key.

Whether her story were true or false, could have been ascertained in

two minutes by riding on to the gang with which her father was at work,

but the overseer had made up his mind.

“That won’t do;” said he, “get down.” The girl knelt on the ground;

he got off his horse, and holding him with his left hand, struck her

thirty or forty blows across the shoulders with his tough, flexible,

“raw-hide” whip (a terrible instrument for the purpose). They were well

laid on, at arm’s length, but with no appearance of angry excitement

on the part of the overseer. At every stroke the girl winced and

exclaimed, “Yes, sir!” or “Ah, sir!” or “Please, sir!” not groaning

or screaming. At length he stopped and said, “Now tell me the truth.”

The girl repeated the same story. “You have not got enough yet,” said

he; “pull up your clothes—lie down.” The girl without any hesitation,

without a word or look of remonstrance or entreaty, drew closely all

her garments under her shoulders, and lay down upon the ground with her

face toward the overseer, who continued to flog her with the raw hide,

across her naked loins and thighs, with as much strength as before.

She now shrunk away from him, not rising, but writhing, grovelling,

and screaming, “Oh, don’t sir! oh, please stop, master! please, sir!

please, sir! oh, that’s enough, master! oh, Lord! oh, master, master!

oh, God master, do stop! oh, God, master! oh, God, master!”

A young gentleman of fifteen was with us; he had ridden in front, and

now, turning on his horse, looked back with an expression only of

impatience at the delay. It was the first time I had ever seen a woman

flogged. I had seen a man cudgelled and beaten, in the heat of passion,

before, but never flogged with a hundredth part of the severity used in

this case. I glanced again at the perfectly passionless but rather grim

business-like face of the overseer, and again at the young gentleman,

who had turned away; if not indifferent he had evidently not the

faintest sympathy with my emotion. Only my horse chafed. I gave him

rein and spur and we plunged into the bushes and scrambled fiercely

up the steep acclivity. The screaming yells and the whip strokes had

ceased when I reached the top of the bank. Choking, sobbing, spasmodic

groans only were heard. I rode on to where the road, coming diagonally

up the ravine, ran out upon the cotton-field. My young companion met me

there, and immediately afterward the overseer. He laughed as he joined

us, and said:

“She meant to cheat me out of a day’s work, and she has done it, too.”

“Did you succeed in getting another story from her?” I asked, as soon

as I could trust myself to speak.

“No; she stuck to it.”

“Was it not perhaps true?”

“Oh no, sir; she slipped out of the gang when they were going to work,

and she’s been dodging about all day, going from one place to another

as she saw me coming. She saw us crossing there a little while ago, and

thought we had gone to the quarters, but we turned back so quick, we

came into the gully before she knew it, and she could do nothing but

lie down in the bushes.”

“I suppose they often slip off so.”

“No, sir; I never had one do so before—not like this; they often run

away to the woods, and are gone some time, but I never had a dodge-off

like this before.”

“Was it necessary to punish her so severely?”

“Oh yes, sir,” (laughing again.) “If I hadn’t, she would have done the

same thing again to-morrow, and half the people on the plantation would

have followed her example. Oh, you’ve no idea how lazy these niggers

are; you Northern people don’t know anything about it. They’d never do

any work at all if they were not afraid of being whipped.”

We soon afterward met an old man, who, on being closely questioned,

said that he had seen the girl leave the gang as they went to work

after dinner. It appeared that she had been at work during the

forenoon, but at dinner-time the gang was moved, and as it passed

through the gully she slipped out. The driver had not missed her. The

overseer said that when he first took charge of this plantation, the

negroes ran away a great deal—they disliked him so much. They used to

say, ’twas hell to be on his place; but after a few months they got

used to his ways, and liked him better than any of the rest. He had

not had any run away now for some time. When they ran away they would

generally return within a fortnight. If many of them went off, or if

they stayed out long, he would make the rest of the force work Sundays,

or deprive them of some of their usual privileges until the runaways

returned. The negroes on the plantation could always bring them in if

they chose to do so. They depended on them for their food, and they had

only to stop the supplies to oblige them to surrender.

* * * * *

Accepting the position of the overseer, I knew that his method was

right, but it was a red-hot experience to me, and has ever since been

a fearful thing in my memory. Strangely so, I sometimes think, but I

suppose the fact that the delicate and ingenuous lad who was with me,

betrayed not even the slightest flush of shame, and that I constrained

myself from the least expression of feeling of any kind, made the

impression in my brain the more intense and lasting.

Sitting near a gang with an overseer and the manager, the former would

occasionally call out to one and another by name, in directing or

urging their labour. I asked if he knew them all by name. He did, but I

found that the manager did not know one in five of them. The overseer

said he generally could call most of the negroes on a plantation

by their names in two weeks after he came to it, but it was rather

difficult to learn them on account of there being so many of the same

name, distinguished from each other by a prefix. “There’s a Big Jim

here, and a Little Jim, and Eliza’s Jim, and there’s Jim Bob, and Jim

Clarisy.”

“What’s Jim Clarisy?—how does he get that name?”

“He’s Clarisy’s child, and Bob is Jim Bob’s father. That fellow ahead

there, with the blue rag on his head, his name is Swamp; he always goes

by that name, but his real name is Abraham, I believe; is it not, Mr.

[Manager]?”

“His name is Swamp on the plantation register—that’s all I know of

him.”

“I believe his name is Abraham,” said the overseer; “he told me so.

He was bought of Judge ——, he says, and he told me his master called

him Swamp because he ran away so much. He is the worst runaway on the

place.”

I inquired about the increase of the negroes on the estate, and the

manager having told me the number of deaths and births the previous

year, which gave a net increase of four per cent.—on Virginia estates

it is often twenty per cent.—I asked if the negroes began to have

children at a very early age. “Sometimes at sixteen,” said the

manager. “Yes, and at fourteen,” said the overseer; “that girl’s had a

child”—pointing to a girl that did not appear older than fourteen. “Is

she married?” “No.” “You see,” said the manager, “negro girls are not

remarkable for chastity; their habits indeed rather hinder them from

having children. They’d have them younger than they do, if they would

marry or live with but one man, sooner than they do.[25] They often do

not have children till they are twenty-five years old.” “Are those who

are married true to each other?” I asked. The overseer laughed heartily

at the idea, and described a disgusting state of things. Women were

almost common property, though sometimes the men were not all inclined

to acknowledge it; for when I asked: “Do you not try to discourage

this?” the overseer answered: “No, not unless they quarrel.” “They get

jealous and quarrel among themselves sometimes about it,” the manager

explained, “or come to the overseer and complain, and he has them

punished.” “Give all hands a damned good hiding,” said the overseer.

“You punish for adultery, then, but not for fornication?” “Yes,”

answered the manager, but “No,” insisted the overseer, “we punish them

for quarrelling; if they don’t quarrel I don’t mind anything about it,

but if it makes a muss, I give all four of ’em a warning.”

Riding through a large gang of hoers, with two of the overseers, I

observed that a large proportion of them appeared to be thorough-bred

Africans. Both of them thought that the “real black niggers” were

about three-fourths of the whole number, and that this would hold

as an average on Mississippi and Louisiana plantations. One of them

pointed out a girl—“That one is pure white; you see her hair?” (It

was straight and sandy.) “She is the only one we have got.” It was

not uncommon, he said, to see slaves so white that they could not be

easily distinguished from pure-blooded whites. He had never been on a

plantation before, that had not more than one on it.[26] “Now,” said

I, “if that girl should dress herself well, and run away, would she be

suspected of being a slave?” (I could see nothing myself by which to

distinguish her, as she passed, from an ordinary poor white girl.)

“Oh, yes; you might not know her if she got to the North, but any of us

would know her.”

“How?”

“By her language and manners.”

“But if she had been brought up as house-servant?”

“Perhaps not in that case.”

The other thought there would be no difficulty; you could always see a

slave girl quail when you looked in her eyes.

I asked if they thought the mulattoes or white slaves were weaker or

less valuable than the pure negroes.

“Oh, no; I’d rather have them a great deal,” said one. “Well, I had

not,” said the other; “the blacker the better for me.” “The white

ones,” added the first, “are more active, and know more, and I think

they do the most work.” “Are they more subject to illness, or do

they appear to be of weaker constitutions?” One said they were not,

the other that they did not seem to bear the heat as well. The first

thought that this might be so, but that, nevertheless, they would do

more work. I afterwards asked the manager’s opinion. He thought they

did not stand excessive heat as well as the pure negroes, but that,

from their greater activity and willingness, they would do more work.

He believed they were equally strong and no more liable to illness;

had never had reason to think them of weaker constitution. They often

had-large families, and he had not noticed that their children were

weaker or more subject to disease than others. He thought that perhaps

they did not have so many children as the pure negroes, but he had

supposed the reason to be that they did not begin bearing so young as

the others, and this was because they were more attractive to the men,

and perhaps more amorous themselves. He knew a great many mulattoes

living together, and they generally had large and healthy families.

Afterwards, at one of the plantation nurseries, where there were some

twenty or thirty infants and young children, a number of whom were

evidently the offspring of white fathers, I asked the nurse to point

out the healthiest children to me, and of those she indicated more were

of the pure than of the mixed breed. I then asked her to show me which

were the sickliest, and she did not point to any of the latter. I then

asked if she noticed any difference in this respect between the black

and the yellow children. “Well, dey do say, master, dat de yellow ones

is de sickliest, but I can’t tell for true dat I ever see as dey was.”

Being with the proprietor and the manager together, I asked about

the religious condition of the slaves. There were “preachers” on the

plantations, and they had some religious observances on a Sunday; but

the preachers were the worst characters among them, and, they thought,

only made their religion a cloak for habits of especial depravity.

They were, at all events, the most deceitful and dishonest slaves

on the plantation, and oftenest required punishment. The negroes of

all denominations, and even those who ordinarily made no religious

pretensions, would join together in exciting religious observances.

They did not like to have white men preach on the estate; and in future

they did not intend to permit them to do so. It excited the negroes so

much as to greatly interfere with the subordination and order which

were necessary to obtain the profitable use of their labour. They would

be singing and dancing every night in then cabins, till dawn of day,

and utterly unfit themselves for work.

With regard to the religious instruction of slaves, widely different

practices of course prevail. There are some slaveholders, like Bishop

Polk of Louisiana,[27] who oblige, and many others who encourage,

their slaves to engage in religious exercises, furnishing them certain

conveniences for the purpose. Among the wealthier slaveowners, however,

and in all those parts of the country where the enslaved portion of

the population outnumbers the whites, there is generally a visible,

and often an avowed distrust of the effect of religious exercises upon

slaves, and even the preaching of white clergymen to them is permitted

by many with reluctance. The prevailing impression among us, with

regard to the important influence of slavery in promoting the spread of

religion among the blacks, is an erroneous one in my opinion. I have

heard northern clergymen speak as if they supposed a regular daily

instruction of slaves in the truths of Christianity to be general. So

far is this from being the case, that although family prayers were held

in several of the fifty planters’ houses in Mississippi and Alabama, in

which I passed a night, I never in a single instance saw a field-hand

attend or join in the devotion of the family.

In South Carolina, a formal remonstrance, signed by over three hundred

and fifty of the leading planters and citizens, was presented to a

Methodist clergyman who had been chosen by the Conference of that

State, as being a cautious and discreet person, to preach especially to

slaves. It was his purpose, expressly declared beforehand, to confine

himself to verbal instruction in religious truth. “Verbal instruction,”

replied the remonstrants, “will increase the desire of the black

population to learn. * * * Open the missionary sluice, and the current

will swell in its gradual onward advance. We thus expect _a progressive

system of improvement_ will be introduced, or will follow from the

nature and force of circumstances, which, if not checked (though it may

be shrouded in sophistry and disguise), _will ultimately revolutionize

our civil institutions_.”

The missionary, the Rev. T. Tupper, accordingly retired from the field.

The local newspaper, the _Grenville Mountaineer_, in announcing his

withdrawal, stated that the great body of the people were manifestly

opposed to the religious instruction of their slaves, even if it were

only given orally.

Though I do not suppose this view is often avowed, or consciously

held by intelligent citizens, such a formal, distinct, and effective

manifestation of sentiment made by so important an integral portion

of the slaveholding body, cannot be supposed to represent a merely

local or occasional state of mind; and I have not been able to resist

the impression, that even where the economy, safety, and duty of

some sort of religious education of the slaves is conceded, so much

caution, reservation, and restriction is felt to be necessary in their

instruction, that the result in the majority of cases has been merely

to furnish a delusive clothing of Christian forms and phrases to the

original vague superstition of the African savage.

In the county of Liberty, in Georgia, a Presbyterian minister has

been for many years employed exclusively in labouring for the moral

enlightenment of the slaves, being engaged and paid for this especial

duty by their owners. From this circumstance, almost unparalleled as

it is, it may be inferred that the planters of that county are, as a

body, remarkably intelligent, liberal, and thoughtful for the moral

welfare of the childlike wards Providence has placed under their care

and tutorship. According to my private information, there is no body of

slaveowners more, if any as much so, in the United States. I heard them

referred to with admiration of their reputation in this particular,

even as far away as Virginia and Kentucky. I believe, that in no

other district has there been displayed as general and long-continued

an interest in the spiritual well-being of the negroes. It must be

supposed that nowhere else are their circumstances more happy and

favourable to Christian nurture.[28]

After labouring thirteen years with a zeal and judgment which had

made him famous, this apostle to the slaves of Liberty was called to

the professorship of theology in the University of South Carolina.

On retiring from his field of labour as a missionary, he addressed a

valedictory sermon to his patrons, which has been published. While

there is no unbecoming despondency or absence of proper gratitude for

such results as have rewarded his protracted labour, visible in this

document, the summing up is not such as would draw unusual cheers if

given in the report of an African missionary at the Tabernacle or

Exeter Hall. Without a word on which the most vigilant suspicion could

rest a doubt of his entire loyalty to the uttermost rights of property

which might be claimed by those whom he addressed, he could not avoid

indicating, in the following passages, what he had been obliged to see

to be the insurmountable difficulty in the way of any vital elevation

of character among those to whom he had been especially charged to

preach the Gospel wherewith Christ blessed mankind:—

“They [his pastoral charge] are, in the language of Scripture,

‘_your money_.’ They are the source, the means of your wealth; by

their labour do you obtain the necessaries, the conveniences, and

comforts of life. The increase of them is the general standard of

your worldly prosperity: without them you would be comparatively

poor. _They are consequently sought after and desired as property,

and when possessed, must be so taken care of and managed as to be

made profitable._

“Now, it is exceedingly difficult to use them as money; to

treat them as property, and at the same time render to them that

which is just and equal as immortal and accountable beings, and

as heirs of the grace of life, equally with ourselves. They are

associated in our business, and thoughts, and feelings, with

labour, and interest, and gain, and wealth. Under the influence

of the powerful feeling of self-interest, there is a tendency to

view and to treat them as instruments of labour, as a means of

wealth, and to forget or pass over lightly, the fact that they are

what they are, under the eye and government of God. There is a

tendency to rest satisfied with very small and miserable efforts

for their moral improvement, and to give one’s self but little

trouble to correct immoralities and reform wicked practices and

habits, should they do their work quietly and profitably, and

enjoy health, and go on to multiply and increase upon the earth.”

This is addressed to a body of “professing evangelical Christians,” in

a district in which more is done for the elevation of the slaves than

in any other of the South. What they are called to witness from their

own experience, as the tendency of a system which recognizes slaves

as absolute property, mere instruments of labour and means of wealth,

“exceedingly difficult” for them to resist, is, I am well convinced,

the _entirely irresistible effect_ upon the mass of slaveholders.

Fearing that moral and intellectual culture may injure their value as

property, they oftener interfere to prevent than they endeavour to

assist their slaves from using the poor opportunities that chance may

throw in their way.

Moreover, the missionary adds:—

“The current of the conversation and of business in society, in

respect to negroes, runs in the channel of interest, and thus

increases the blindness and insensibility of owners. * * * And

this custom of society acts also on the negroes, who, seeing, and

more than seeing, _feeling and knowing, that their owners regard

and treat them as their money—as property only_—are inclined to

lose sight of their better character and higher interests, and,

in their ignorance and depravity, to estimate themselves, and

religion, and virtue, no higher than their owners do.”

Again, from the paramount interest of owners in the property quality

of these beings, they provide them only such accommodations for

spending the time in which they are not actively employed, as shall be

favourable to their bodily health, and enable them to comply with the

commandment, to “increase and multiply upon the earth,” without regard

to their moral health, without caring much for their obedience to the

more pure and spiritual commands of the Scriptures.

“The consequent mingling up of husbands and wives, children and

youths, banishes the privacy and modesty essential to domestic

peace and purity, and opens wide the door to dishonesty,

oppression, violence, and profligacy. The owner may see, or

hear, or know little of it. His servants may appear cheerful,

and go on in the usual way, and enjoy health, and do his will,

yet their actual moral state may be miserable. * * * _If family

relations are not preserved and protected, we cannot look for any

considerable degree of moral and religious improvement._”

It must be acknowledged of slavery, as a system, not only in Liberty

county, but as that system finds the expression of the theory on which

it is based in the laws of every Southern State, that family relations

are not preserved and protected under it. As we should therefore

expect, the missionary finds that

“One of the chief causes of the immorality of negroes arises from

the indifference both of themselves and of their owners to family

relations.”

Large planters generally do not allow their negroes to marry off

the plantation to which they belong, conceiving “that their own

convenience and interest, and,” says the missionary, “the comfort and

_real_ happiness of their people” are thereby promoted. Upon this

point, however, it is but just to quote the views of the editor of the

_Southern Agriculturist_, who, in urging planters to adopt and strictly

maintain such a regulation, says: “If a master has a servant, and no

suitable one of the other sex for a companion, he had better give an

extra price for such an one as his would be willing to marry, than to

have one man owning the husband, and the other the wife.”

But this mode of arranging the difficulty seems not to have occurred

to the Liberty county missionary; and while arguing against the course

usually pursued, he puts the following, as a pertinent suggestion:—

“Admitting that they are people having their preferences as well

as others, _and there be a supply_, can that love which is the

foundation and essence of the marriage state be forced?”

Touching honesty and thrift among the negroes, he says:

“While some discipline their people for every act of theft

committed against their interests, they have no care whatever

what amount of pilfering and stealing the people carry on _among

themselves_. Hence, in some places, thieves thrive and honest men

suffer, until it becomes a practice ‘to keep if you can what is

your own, and get all you can besides that is your neighbour’s.

Things come to such a pass, that the saying of the negroes is

literally true, ‘The people live upon one another.’”

Referring to the evil of intemperance, it is observed:

“Whatever toleration masters use towards ardent spirits in

others, they are generally inclined to use none in respect to

their servants; and in effecting this reformation, masters

and mistresses should set the example; for without example,

precepts and persuasions are powerless. Nor can force effect this

reformation as surely and perfectly as persuasion—appealing to

the character and happiness of the servant himself, the appeal

recognizes him in such a manner as to produce self-respect, and it

tends to give elevation of conduct and character. I will not dwell

upon this point.”

He will not dwell on this point; yet, is it not evident that until this

point can be dwelt upon, all effort for the genuine Christianization of

the negro race in the South must be ineffectual?

The benefit to the African which is supposed to be incidental to

American slavery, is confessedly proportionate to the degree in which

he is forced into intercourse with a superior race and made subject

to its example. Before I visited the South, I had believed that the

advantages accruing from slavery, in this way, far outweighed the

occasional cruelties, and other evils incidental to the system. I

found, however, the mental and moral condition of the negroes, even

in Virginia, and in those towns and districts containing the largest

proportion of whites, much lower than I had anticipated; and as soon

as I had an opportunity to examine one of the extensive plantations of

the interior, although one inherited by its owner, and the home of a

large and virtuous white family, I was satisfied that the advantages

arising to the blacks from association with their white masters were

very inconsiderable, scarcely appreciable, for the great majority of

the field-hands. Even the overseer had barely acquaintance enough with

the slaves, individually, to call them by name; the owner could not

determine if he were addressing one of his own chattels, or whether

it was another man’s property, he said, when by chance he came upon

a negro off the work. Much less did the slaves have an opportunity

to cultivate their minds by intercourse with other white people.

Whatever of civilization, and of the forms, customs, and shibboleths

of Christianity, they were acquiring by example, and through police

restraints, might, it occurred to me, after all, but poorly compensate

the effect of the systematic withdrawal from them of all the usual

influences which tend to nourish the moral nature and develope the

intellectual faculties, in savages as well as in civilized free men.

This doubt, as my Northern friends well know, for I had habitually

assumed the opposite, in all previous discussions of the slavery

question, was unexpected and painful to me. I resisted it long, and it

was not till I had been more than twelve months in the South, with my

attention constantly fixed upon the point, that I ceased to suspect

that the circumstances which brought me to it were exceptional and

deceptive. It grew constantly stronger with every opportunity I had of

observing the condition, habits, and character of slaves whom I could

believe to present fair examples of the working of the system with the

majority of those subject to it upon the large plantations.

* * * * *

The frequency with which the slaves use religious phrases of all

kinds, the readiness with which they engage in what are deemed

religious exercises, and fall into religious ecstacies, with the crazy,

jocular manner in which they often talk of them, are striking and

general characteristics. It is not at all uncommon to hear them refer

to conversations which they allege, and apparently believe themselves

to have had with Christ, the apostles, or the prophets of old, or to

account for some of their actions by attributing them to the direct

influence of the Holy Spirit, or of the devil. It seems to me that this

state of mind is fraught with more danger to their masters than any to

which they could possibly have been brought by general and systematic

education, and by the unrestricted study of the Bible, even though

this involved what is so much dreaded, but which is, I suspect, an

inevitable accompaniment of moral elevation, the birth of an ambition

to look out for themselves. Grossly ignorant and degraded in mind,

with a crude, undefined, and incomplete system of theology and ethics,

credulous and excitable, intensely superstitious and fanatical, what

better field could a cunning monomaniac or a sagacious zealot desire in

which to set on foot an appalling crusade?

The African races, compared with the white, at least with the

Teutonic, have greater vanity or love of approbation, a stronger

dramatic and demonstrative character, more excitability, less exact

or analytic minds, and a nature more sensuous, though (perhaps from

want of cultivation) less refined. They take a real pleasure, for

instance, such as it is a rare thing for a white man to be able to

feel, in bright and strongly contrasting colours, and in music, in

which nearly all are proficient to some extent. They are far less

adapted for steady, uninterrupted labour than we are, but excel us in

feats demanding agility and tempestuous energy. A Mississippi steamboat

manned by negro deck-hands will wood up a third quicker than one manned

by the same number of whites; but white labourers of equal intelligence

and under equal stimulus will cut twice as much wood, split twice

as many rails, and hoe a third more corn in a day than negroes. On

many plantations, religious exercises are almost the only habitual

recreation not purely sensual, from steady dull labour, in which

the negroes are permitted to indulge, and generally all other forms

of mental enjoyment are discouraged. Religious exercises are rarely

forbidden, and a greater freedom to individual impulse and talent is

allowed while engaged in them than is ever tolerated in conducting mere

amusements or educational exercises.

Naturally and necessarily all that part of the negro’s nature which is

otherwise suppressed, bursts out with an intensity and vehemence almost

terrible to witness, in forms of religious worship and communion; and

a “profession” of piety which it is necessary to make before one can

take a very noticeable part in the customary social exercises, is

almost universal, except on plantations where the ordinary tumultuous

religious meetings are discouraged, or in towns where other recreations

are open to the slaves.[29]

Upon the value of the statistics of “coloured church membership,”

which are often used as evidence that the evils of slavery are fully

compensated by its influence in Christianizing the slaves, some light

is thrown by the following letter from the white pastor of a town

church in that part of the South in which the whites are most numerous,

and in which the negroes enjoy the most privileges.

“_To the Editor of the Richmond (Virginia) Religious Herald._

* * * “The truth is, the teachings of the pulpit (at least among

Baptists) have nothing to do with the matter. Let me furnish

a case in proof. Of two churches which the writer serves, his

immediate predecessor was pastor for about twenty-five years. It

would be only necessary to give his name, to furnish the strongest

and most satisfactory assurance that nothing which ever fell

from his lips could be construed into the support of ignorance,

superstition, or fanaticism. During the five or six years I have

served these churches, whatever may have been my errors and

failings (and I am ready to admit that they have been numerous

and grievous enough, in all conscience), I know I have never

uttered a sentiment which could be tortured into the support of

the superstitions prevailing among the coloured people. And yet

in both these churches, the coloured members are as superstitious

and fanatical as they are elsewhere. Indeed, this was to be

expected, for I certainly claim no superiority over my brethren in

the ministry, and I am satisfied that many of them are far better

qualified than I am to expose error and to root out superstition.

This state of things, then, is not due to the teachings of the

pulpit. Nor is it the result of private instructions by masters.

Indeed, these last have been afforded so sparingly, till within a

few years since, that they could produce but little effect of any

sort. And, besides, those who own servants, and are willing to

teach them, are far too intelligent to countenance superstition

in any way. I repeat the inquiry, then, Why is it that so many of

our coloured members are ignorant, superstitious, and fanatical?

It is the effect of instructions received from leading men among

themselves, and the churches are responsible for this effect, in

so far as they receive into fellowship those who have listened to

these instructions, ground their hopes upon them, and guide their

lives by them. Whatever we may say against superstition, so long

as we receive into our churches those who are its slaves, they

will believe that we think them Christians; and naturally relying

on our judgment as expressed by their reception, they will live

deluded, and die but to be lost.

“But some one will say, ‘We never receive coloured persons when

they manifest these superstitions—when they talk of visions,

dreams, sounds,’ etc. This is right as far as it goes. In every

such case they should be rejected. But superstition of a fatal

character often exists where nothing is said about dreams and

visions. It is just as fatally superstitious to trust in prayers

and feelings, as in dreams and visions. And this is the sort

of superstition which now prevails among the coloured people.

They have found that sights and sounds will not answer before

the whites, and now (reserving these, perhaps, for some chosen

auditory of their own colour), they substitute prayers and

feelings. In illustration permit me to record, in no spirit

of levity, the stereotyped experience which generally passes

current, and, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, introduces

the coloured candidate into the church. The pastor is informed, by

one of the ‘coloured deacons,’ that a man wishes to offer to the

church with a view to baptism. The fact is announced, a meeting of

the church called, and the candidate comes forward.

“_Pastor._—‘Well, John, tell me in a few words, in your own way,

your religious experience. What have been your feelings, and what

are your present hopes and purposes?’

“_John._—‘I see other people trying, and so I thought I would try

too, as I had a soul to save. So I went to pray, and the more I

pray the wus I felt; so I kept on praying, and the more I pray the

wus I felt. I felt heavy—I felt a weight—and I kept on praying

till at last I felt light—I felt easy—I felt like I loved all

Christian people—I felt like I loved everybody,’

“Now this is positively the whole of the experience which is

generally related by coloured candidates for baptism. There may be

a slight variation of expression now and then, but the sense is

almost invariably the same. On this experience, hundreds have been

received into the churches—I I have received many upon it myself.

I am somewhat curious to know how many of the seventy, baptized

by my good brother Bagby, told this tale. I’ll warrant not less

than fifty. Have any of us been right in receiving persons on

such a relation as this? In the whole of it, there is not one

word of gospel, not one word about sorrow for sin, not one word

about faith, not one word about Christ. I know that all these

things are subsequently brought out by questions; and were this

not the case, I have no idea that the candidate would be in any

instance received. _But that these questions may be understood,

they are made necessarily ‘leading questions,’_ such as suggest

their answers; and consequently these answers are of comparatively

little value. * * * I am aware that, as brother Bagby suggests,

private instructions by masters have been too much neglected.

_But these can accomplish but little good, so long as they are

counteracted by the teachings of leading coloured members, in

whose views, after all our efforts, the coloured people will have

most confidence._”

Not the smallest suggestion, I observe, in all the long article from

which the above is derived, is ventured, that the negroes are capable

of education, or that their religious condition would improve if their

general enlightenment of mind were not studiously prevented.

“I have often heard the remark made,” says the Rev. C. C. Jones, in a

treatise on the “Religious Instruction of Slaves,” printed at Savannah,

Georgia, 1842, “by men whose standing and office in the churches

afforded them abundant opportunity for observation, that the more they

have had to do with coloured members, the less confidence they have

been compelled to place in their Christian professions.”

A portion of a letter written for publication by the wife of the pastor

of a church in the capital of Alabama, given below, naïvely reveals the

degree of enlightenment prevailing among the Christianized Africans at

a point where their means of instruction are a thousand times better

than they are on an average throughout the country.

“Having talked to him seriously, and in the strongest light held

up to him the enormity of the crime of forsaking his lawful wife

and taking another, Colly replied, most earnestly, and not taking

in at all the idea of guilt, but deeply distressed at having

offended his master:

“‘Lor, Massa Harry, what was I to do, sir? She tuk all I could

git, and more too, sir, to put on her back; and tellin’ de truf,

sir, dress herself as no poor man’s wife hav’ any right to. I

’monstrated wid her, massa, but to no purpose; and den, sir, w’y

I jis did all a decent man could do—lef her, sir, for some oder

nigger better off ’an I is.’

“’Twas no use. Colly could not be aroused to conscientiousness on

the subject.

“Not one in a thousand, I suppose, of these poor creatures have

any conception whatever of the sanctity of marriage; nor can they

be made to have; yet, strange to say, they are perfect models of

conjugal fidelity and devotion while the temporary bondage lasts.

I have known them to walk miles after a hard day’s work, not only

occasionally, but every night, to see the old woman, and cut her

wood for her, etc. But to see the coolness with which they throw

off the yoke is diverting in the extreme.

“I was accosted one morning in my husband’s study by a

respectable-looking negro woman, who meekly inquired if Mr. B. was

at home.

“‘No, he is not. Is it anything particular you want?—perhaps I can

help you.’

“‘Yes, ma’am; it’s partickler business wid himself.’

“Having good reason to believe it was the old story of a ‘mountain

in labour and brought forth a mouse,’ I pressed the question,

partly to save my better half some of the petty annoyances to

which he was almost daily subjected by his sable flock, and

partly, I own, to gratify a becoming and laudable curiosity, after

all this show of mystery. Behold the answer in plain English, or

rather nigger English.

“‘I came to ask, please ma’am, if I might have another husband.’

“Just at this crisis the oracle entered, who, having authority by

a few spoken words, to join together those whom no man may put

asunder, these poor people simply imagine him gifted with equal

power to annul the contract with a breath of his mouth.

“I was heartily amused to find that this woman was really no

widow, as I had supposed, but merely from caprice, or some reason

satisfactory to herself, no doubt, took it into her head to drop

her present spouse and look out for another. The matter was

referred to the ‘Quarterly Conference,’ where an amusing scene

occurred, which resulted in the discomfiture of the disconsolate

petitioner, who returned to her home rather crest-fallen.

“These Quarterly Conference debates, for flights of oratory,

and superlativeness of diction, beggar all description. Be it

understood, that negroes, as a class, have more ‘business’ to

attend to than any other people—that is, provided they can thereby

get a chance to ‘speak ’fore white folks.’ To make a speech is

glory enough for Sambo, if he happen to have the ‘gift of gab;’

and to speak before the preacher is an honour unparalleled. And,

by the way, if the preacher have will and wit enough to manage and

control the discordant elements of a negro Quarterly Conference,

he will be abundantly rewarded with such respect and gratitude as

a man seldom may lay claim to. They account him but a very little

‘lower than the angels;’ and their lives, their fortunes, and

their sacred honour, are equally his at command. But wo be to the

unfortunate pastor who treats them with undue indulgence; they

will besiege him daily and hourly with their petty affairs, and

their business meetings will be such a monopoly of his time and

patience, that but for the farcical character of the same, making

them more like dramatic entertainments than sober realities, he

would be in despair. Far into the short hours of morning will

they speechify and magnify, until nothing but the voice of stern

authority, in a tone of command not to be mistaken, can stop the

current.”

An Alabama gentleman whom I questioned with regard to the chastity

of the so-called pious slaves, confessed, that four negro women had

borne children in his own house, all of them at the time members in

good standing of the Baptist church, and none of them calling any man

husband. The only negro man in the house was also a church member, and

he believed that he was the father of the four children. He said that

he did not know of more than one negro woman whom he could suppose to

be chaste, yet he knew hosts who were members of churches.[30]

A Northern clergyman who had been some years in another town in

Alabama, where also the means of instruction offered the slaves were

unusually good, answered my inquiry, What proportion of the coloured

members of the churches in the town had any clear comprehension of the

meaning of the articles of faith which they professed? “Certainly not

more than one in seven.”

The acknowledgment that “the coloured people will, in spite of all

our efforts, have more confidence in the views of leading coloured

members,” made by the writer of the letter taken from the “Religious

Herald,” has been generally made by all clergymen at the South with

whom I have conversed. A clergyman of the Episcopal Church, of very

frank and engaging manners, said in my presence that he had been

striving for seven years to gain the confidence of the small number of

Africans belonging to his congregation, and with extreme humility he

had been lately forced to acknowledge that all his apparent success

hitherto had been most delusive. When asked how he accounted for

it, he at once ascribed it to the negro’s habitual distrust of the

white race, and in discussing the causes of this distrust he asked

how, if he pretended to believe that the Bible was the Word of God,

addressed equally to all the human race, he could explain to a negro’s

satisfaction why he should fear to put it directly into his hands and

instruct him to read it and judge for himself of his duty? A planter

present, a member of his church, immediately observed that these were

dangerous views, and advised him to be cautious in the expression of

them. The laws of the country forbade the education of negroes, and the

church laws, and he trusted always would remain, the bulwark of the

laws. The clergyman replied that he had no design to break the laws,

but he must say that he considered that the law which withheld the

Bible from the negro was unnecessary and papistical in character.[31]

The “Methodist Protestant,” a religious newspaper edited by a

clergyman, in Maryland, where the slave population is to the free

only in the ratio of one to twenty-five, lately printed an account

of a slave auction in Java (translated from a Dutch paper), at which

the father of a slave family was permitted to purchase his wife and

children at a nominal price, owing to the humanity of the spectators.

The account concluded as follows:—

“It would be difficult to describe the joy experienced by these

slaves on hearing the fall of the hammer which thus gave them

their liberty; and this joy was further augmented by the presents

given them by numbers of the spectators, in order that they might

be able to obtain a subsistence till such time as they could

procure employment.

“These are the acts of a noble generosity that deserves to

be remembered, and which, at the same time, testify that the

inhabitants of Java begin to abhor the crying injustice of

slavery, and are willing to entertain measures for its abolition.”

To give currency to such ideas, even in Maryland, would be fatal to

what ministers call their “influence,” and which they everywhere

value at a rather dangerous estimate; accordingly, in the editorial

columns prominence is given to the following salve to the outraged

sensibilities of the subscribers:

“SLAVE AUCTION IN JAVA.

“A brief article, with this head, appears on the fourth page

of our paper this week. It is of a class of articles we _never

select_, because they are very often manufactured by paragraphists

for a purpose, and are not reliable. It was put in by our printer

in place of something we had _marked out_. We did not see this

objectionable substitute until the outside form was worked off,

and are therefore not responsible for it.”[32]

The habitual caution imposed on clergymen and public teachers must,

and obviously does have an important secondary effect, similar to that

usually attributed by Protestants to papacy, upon the minds of all the

people, discountenancing and retarding the free and fearless exercise

of the mind upon subjects of a religious or ethical nature, and the

necessity of accepting and apologizing for the exceedingly low morality

of the nominally religious slaves, together with the familiarity with

this immorality which all classes acquire, renders the existence

of a very elevated standard of morals among the whites almost an

impossibility.[33]

In spite of the constant denunciations by the Southern newspapers, of

those who continued to patronize Northern educational institutions, I

never conversed with a cultivated Southerner on the effects of slavery,

that he did not express a wish or intention to have his own children

educated where they should be free from demoralizing association with

slaves. That this association is almost inevitably corrupting and

dangerous, is very generally (I may say, excepting by the extremest

fanatics of South Carolina, universally) admitted. Now, although the

children of a few wealthy men may, for a limited period, be preserved

from this danger, the children of the million cannot be. Indeed it

requires a man of some culture, and knowledge of the rest of the world,

to appreciate the danger sufficiently to guard at all diligently

against it. If habitual intercourse with a hopelessly low and immoral

class is at all bad in its effects on young minds, the people of the

South are, as a people, educated subject to this bad influence, and

must bear the consequences. In other words, if the slaves must not be

elevated, it would seem to be a necessity that the citizens should

steadily degenerate.

Change and grow more marked in their peculiarities with every

generation, they certainly do, very obviously. “The South” has a

traditional reputation for qualities and habits in which I think the

Southern people, as a whole, are to-day more deficient than any other

nation in the world. The Southern gentleman, as we ordinarily conceive

him to be, is as rare a phenomenon in the South at the present day

as is the old squire of Geoffry Crayon in modern England. But it is

unnecessary to argue how great must be the influence, upon people of a

higher origin, of habitual association with a race systematically kept

at the lowest ebb of intellect and morals. It has been elaborately and

convincingly described by Mr. Jefferson, from his personal experience

and observation of his neighbours. What he testified to be the effect

upon the Virginians, in his day, of owning and associating with slaves,

is now to be witnessed to a far greater and more deplorable extent

throughout the whole South, but most deplorably in districts where the

slave population predominates, and where, consequently, the action of

slavery has been most unimpeded.[34]

What proportion of the larger cotton plantations are resided upon

by their owners, I am unable to estimate with confidence. Of those

having cabin accommodations for fifty slaves each, which came under

my observation from the road, while I was travelling through the rich

cotton district bordering the Mississippi river, I think more than

half were unprovided with a habitation which I could suppose to be

the ordinary residence of a man of moderate wealth. I should judge

that a large majority of all the slaves in this district, were left by

their owners to the nearly unlimited government of hireling overseers

the greater part of the time. Some of these plantations are owned by

capitalists, who reside permanently and constantly in the North or

in Europe. Many are owned by wealthy Virginians and Carolinians, who

reside on the “show plantations” of those States—country seats, the

exhausted soil of which will scarcely produce sufficient to feed and

clothe the resident slaves, whose increase is constantly removed to

colonize these richer fields of the West.

A still larger number are merely occasional sojourning places of their

owners, who naturally enough prefer to live, as soon as they can afford

to do so, where the conveniences and luxuries belonging to a highly

civilized state of society are more easily obtained than they can ever

be in a country of large plantations. It is rare that a plantation

of this class can have a dozen intelligent families residing within

a day’s ride of it. Any society that a planter enjoys on his estate

must, therefore, consist in a great degree of permanent guests. Hence

the name for hospitality of wealthy planters. A large plantation is

necessarily a retreat from general society, and is used by its owner, I

am inclined to think, in the majority of cases, in winter, as Berkshire

villas and farms are in summer by rich people of New York and Boston.

I have never been on a plantation numbering fifty field-hands, the

owner of which was accustomed to reside steadily through the year upon

it. Still I am aware that there are many such, and possibly it is a

minority of them who are regularly absent with their families from

their plantations during any considerable part of the year.

The summer visitors to our Northern watering places, and the European

tourists, from the South, are, I judge, chiefly of the migratory,

wealthy class. Such persons, it is evident are much less influenced in

their character and habits, by association with slaves, than any other

at the South.

The number of the very wealthy is, of course, small, yet as the chief

part of the wealth of these consists in slaves, no inconsiderable

proportion of all the slaves belong to men who deputize their

government in a great measure to overseers. It may be computed, from

the census of 1850, that about one half the slaves of Louisiana and one

third that of Mississippi, belong to estates of not less than fifty

slaves each, and of these, I believe, nine-tenths live on plantations

which their owners reside upon, if at all, but transiently.

The number of plantations of this class, and the proportion of those

employed upon them to the whole body of negroes in the country, is as

I have said, rapidly increasing. At the present prices of cotton the

large grower has such advantages over the small, that the owner of a

plantation of fifty slaves, favourably situated, unless he lives very

recklessly, will increase in wealth so rapidly and possess such a

credit that he may very soon establish or purchase other plantations,

so that at his death his children may be provided for without reducing

the effective force of negroes on any division of his landed estate.

The excessive credit given to such planters by negro dealers and

tradesmen renders this the more practicable. The higher the price

of cotton the higher is that of negroes, and the higher the price

of negroes the less is it in the power of men of small capital to

buy them. Large plantations of course pay a much larger per centage

on the capital invested in them than smaller ones; indeed the only

plausible economical defence of slavery is simply an explanation of

the advantages of associated labour, advantages which are possessed

equally by large manufacturing establishments in which free labourers

are brought together and employed in the most effective manner, and

which I can see no sufficient reason for supposing could not be made

available for agriculture did not the good results flowing from small

holdings, on the whole, counterbalance them. If the present high price

of cotton and the present scarcity of labour at the South continues,

the cultivation of cotton on small plantations will by-and-by become

unusual, for the same reason that hand-loom weaving has become unusual

in the farm houses of Massachusetts.

But whatever advantages large plantations have, they accrue only

to their owners and to the buyers of cotton; the mass of the white

inhabitants are dispersed over a greater surface, discouraged and

driven toward barbarism by them, and the blacks upon them, while

rapidly degenerating from all that is redeeming in savage-life, are, it

is to be feared, gaining little that is valuable of civilization.

In the report of the Grand Jury of Richland District, South Carolina,

in eighteen hundred and fifty-four, calling for a re-establishment of

the African slave trade,[35] it is observed: “As to the moralty of

this question, it is scarcely necessary for us to allude to it; when

the fact is remarked that the plantations of Alabama, Mississippi,

Louisiana, and Texas have been and are daily settled by the removal

of slaves from the more northern of the Slave States, and that in

consequence of their having been raised in a more healthy climate and

in most cases trained to pursuits totally different, the mortality even

on the best-ordered farms is so great that in many instances the entire

income is expended in the purchase of more slaves from the same source

in order to replenish and keep up those plantations, while in _every

case_ the condition of the slave, if his life is spared, is made worse

both physically and morally. * * * And if you look at the subject in a

religious point of view, the contrast is equally striking, for when you

remove a slave from the more northern to the more southern parts of the

slaveholding States, you thereby diminish his religious opportunities.”

I believe that this statement gives an exaggerated and calumnious

report of the general condition of the slaves upon the plantations of

the States referred to—containing, as they do, nearly one half of the

whole slave population of the South—but I have not been able to resist

the conviction that in the districts where cotton is now grown most

profitable to the planters, the oppression and deterioration of the

negro race is much more lamentable than is generally supposed by those

who like myself have been constrained, by other considerations, to

accept it as a duty to oppose temperately but determinately the modern

policy of the South, of which this is an immediate result. Its effect

on the white race, I still consider to be infinitely more deplorable.