Capital invested in trade, $1,200.
SECOND TIER COUNTIES.
_Soil._—“Generally poor, barren pine land; when manured, will
produce about twenty bushels of corn per acre.”
COAST COUNTIES.
_Soil._—Poor turpentine pine land in the rear; on the
Altamaha, “of inexhaustible fertility.”
SECOND TIER COUNTIES.
_Education._—“Few schools;” two academies (one Baptist, and
the other Methodist, probably), with thirteen pupils between
them. Four public schools (1 to 148 square miles), averaging
ten pupils each; expense of maintenance not returned.
COAST COUNTIES.
_Education._—One academy, with thirty-eight scholars; four
public schools, twelve and a half miles apart, averaging
twenty pupils each. Expense of maintaining each school,
$78 per annum. “The wealthier classes are highly educated;
but, generally, little interest is felt in the subject of
education.”
SECOND TIER COUNTIES.
_Character of the people._—“High for morality and
hospitality;” “poor, but honest.” At the seat of justice
“are many beautiful pine hills, affording delightful summer
residences to the wealthy planters of Glynn” (hence the
academical advantages).
COAST COUNTIES.
_Character of the people._—“Like all parts of Lower Georgia,
the citizens of McIntosh are generally intelligent and
hospitable.”
SECOND TIER COUNTIES.
_Religion._—Eight church edifices; average value, $240.
COAST COUNTIES.
_Religion._—Twelve church edifices; average value, $1,041.
SECOND TIER COUNTIES.
_Ware County._—(About one fifth of this county is occupied by
the Okefenokee Swamp.)
_Population._—Whites, 2,000; slaves, 300. Average amount of
personal property for each white family, $480.
State tax, $4.05.
Stock in trade, $2,200.
COAST COUNTIES.
_Camden County._—Much the largest part of this county, which
is L shaped, with but one arm on the sea, is inland, and
unfertile.
_Population._—Whites, 3,000; slaves, 4,000. Average amount
of personal property for each white family, $4,428.
State tax, $13.
“Amount of business done at St. Mary’s is about $30,000 per
annum,” nearly all in lumber, and done by New Englanders. No
other trade statistics.
SECOND TIER COUNTIES.
_Soil._—“Light and tolerably productive.”
COAST COUNTIES.
_Soil._—“Of celebrated fertility.”
SECOND TIER COUNTIES.
_Education._—“Very little interest is taken in the subject of
education.” No academies; six public schools (1 to 485 square
miles), sixteen pupils each. Wages of teachers, etc., yearly,
$41 each school. No Sunday school or other libraries.
COAST COUNTIES.
_Education._—No remarks on education or character by Mr.
White. Four public schools (1 to 280 square miles), with
seventeen pupils each, maintained at an average expenditure
of $290 per annum. Two academies, with forty-five pupils.
Five Sunday school libraries, with one hundred and ten
volumes each.
SECOND TIER COUNTIES.
_Character of the people._—“The citizens are said to be
hardy, industrious, and honest.” “Much good might be done by
the organization of temperance societies.”
COAST COUNTIES.
_Character of the people._—No remarks.
SECOND TIER COUNTIES.
_Religion._—Fifteen church edifices, fourteen miles apart,
each accommodating one hundred sitters, and valued at $56
each.
COAST COUNTIES.
_Religion._—Ten churches (five of which are in the town of
St. Mary’s, a beautiful and healthy village, resorted to by
consumptives); average value, $850.
I have purposely omitted Effingham county in the above arrangement,
because the adjoining coast county of Chatham contains the city of
Savannah, an aggregate agency of northern and foreign merchants,
through which is effected the commercial exchanges of a great extent
of back country, the population of which can therefore afford no
indication as to the point under consideration. Effingham, the county
above Chatham, and one of the second tier, is worthy of notice, from
some other important exceptional features of its constitution. Owing
to the amount of rich soil in the county, along the Savannah river,
there is a larger proportion of slaves to the whole population than is
usual in the second tier, their number being sixteen hundred against
only eighteen hundred whites; the non-slaveholders, however, appear to
possess unusual privileges. There is an academy, with fifty pupils,
which Mr. White describes as “a fine school.” The public schools, eight
in number, are less than eight miles apart, with an average attendance
of sixteen pupils. Each school costs one hundred and twelve dollars a
year. There are twenty-one churches, less than five miles apart, and
valued at over twelve hundred dollars a-piece. Mr. White says that
honesty and industry are leading characteristics of the people, who,
notwithstanding the poverty of the soil, are generally in comfortable
circumstances.
The reason of this is partially the close vicinity of Savannah,
affording a cash market for a variety of productions and household
manufactures, among which, as distinguishing the county from any
other in the State, are mentioned fruits, silk, fishing lines,
and cow-bells, “the latter,” Mr. White is told, “superior to any
manufactured in the North or in Europe.” But an equally important
reason for the better character and condition of the people is to
be found in the fact that a majority of them[79] are descendants
and heirs of the land of those very early settlers who most
strenuously and to the last resisted the introduction of slaves
into the colony, being convinced that, if permitted, it would, as
they said in their memorials, “prove a scourge” to the poor people
who were persuaded to petition for it.[80] It is most gratifying
to perceive that all traces of the habits of industry, honesty,
and manly self-reliance, in which they thus educated their
children, are not wholly lost in the lapse of a century.
INDEX.
_Abolition_, effect of low prices of cotton in promoting, i., 201;
extent of the agitation to remote districts, ii., 37; abolitionist
sentiments of a slaveowner in Mississippi, 98; feeling in favour of, in
North Carolina, 131.
_Abolitionists_, danger of poor whites becoming, ii., 357; literature
of, 358.
_Advantage_ (supposed) of slave-labour in cultivating cotton and
tobacco, ii., 252.
_Advertisements_ for runaway negroes, i., 157; of slaves for sale, ii.,
22.
_Acadians_, or poor French _habitans_ in Louisiana, i., 338; ii., 33.
_Adams, Governor_, on the want of education for the poor, ii., 293.
_African races_, character of, compared with the Teutonic, ii., 221.
_Agriculture_, scientific, on a farm on James River, i., 52; wretched
implements used in North Carolina, 172; successful cultivation of the
sugar-cane, 322; on a Mississippi plantation, ii., 201; decay of, in
Virginia, 303; in Slave and Free States, 367.
_Alabama_, appearance of the country, i., 274; “reasons” for making
Montgomery the capital, ii., 112; women getting out iron ore, 115;
picture of decay by one of her statesmen, 297.
_Alabama River_, voyage down the, i., 275; number of so-called
landings, 275; mode of loading cotton, 275; Irishmen cheaper than
niggers, 276.
_Albemarle_, proportion of slaves to whites, i., 116.
_Alexandria_ (Louisiana), yellow fever at, i., 357; unenviable
reputation of, 357.
_Alligators_, ii., 24; dangers of their holes, 29.
_Amalgamation_, i., 307.
_Americans_ in Texas, ii., 101.
‘_American Agriculturist_,’ quoted, i., 116.
_Annexation_ of Cuba, its effect on the sugar manufacture of Louisiana,
ii., 50; on the African slave-trade, 51.
_Apparatus_ used in sugar manufacture, i., 329.
_Aptness_ of negroes for learning, ii., 70; for mechanical occupations,
78.
_Association_ of whites with coloured people, i., 168, 169, _note_; the
quadroon society of New Orleans, 305.
_Aristocrats_, “swell heads,” of Mississippi, ii., 156, 166.
_Auction_, sale of slaves by, at Richmond, i., 50; ii., 372.
_Aversion_ to labour, difficulty in overcoming the negro’s, ii., 192.
_Bacon_ raising, ii., 176.
_Bals masqués_ at New Orleans, i., 304.
_Barton, Dr._, on the advantages of slavery, ii., 277, _note_.
_Bee-hunting_, ii., 117.
_Big woods_, ii., 29.
_Bill of fare_ of an hotel at Memphis, ii., 57.
_Blacksmith_, an independent, ii., 8.
_Boarding-house_ at Washington, i., 28.
_Boat-songs_ of the negroes on the steamboats, i., 347.
_Books_, dangerous, ii., 358.
_Brazos_ bottoms, cotton plantations on the, i., 14.
_Breeding_ slaves for sale in Virginia, i., 57; early period at which
they have children, ii., 80.
_Brooks, P. S._, ii., 348.
_Burning alive_ of a negro in Eastern Tennessee, ii., 349, 351;
frequency of such cases, 354.
_Calcasieu River_ (Texas), ii., 30.
_Canada_, running of slaves into, ii., 362; loss to the South by, 362.
_Cape Fear River_, a type of the navigable streams of the cotton
States, i., 191; passage from Fayetteville to Wilmington, 191; panic
of a steamer’s crew, 192; taking in wood, 193; description of the
passengers, 194; features of the river-banks, 196.
_Capital_ transferred, ii., 299; with Northern men, 301.
_Carolina, North_, fisheries, i., 149; desolate aspect of the country,
171; want of means of communication, 181; degraded condition of white
labourers, 188; general ignorance and torpidity of the people, 190;
their causes, 190; aspect of slavery more favourable than in Virginia,
191; cultivation of forage crops neglected, 200; wages of labourers,
ii., 132.
_Carolina, South_, appearance of the country, i., 204, 215; thinly
peopled, 206; log cabins, 206; negro-quarters, 207; repulsive
appearance of field-hands, 208; conversation with an elderly countryman
in, 217; his ignorance and good-nature, 218, 221; conduct of two
negro-girls, 222; plantations, 233; negro settlements, 233, 237.
_Cartwright, Dr._, on the peculiar diseases of negroes, i., 122.
_Carts_, primitive style of, in Georgia, i., 231.
_Cavaliers_, English, Virginia partly colonized by, ii., 335.
_Cemeteries_, negro, i., 224.
‘_Chambers’ Journal_,’ on the Virginia slave-trade, ii., 372.
_Character_, difference of, in North and South, how accounted for, ii.,
332, _et seq._
‘_Charleston Mercury_,’ quoted, ii., 362.
‘_Charleston Standard_,’ the, on dishonest trading with slaves, i., 253.
_Charleston_ (S. C.), average mortality of whites and negroes at, ii.,
259.
_Chastity_ of so-called pious slaves, ii., 226.
_Children_, bad effects on, from intercourse with slaves, i., 222.
_Christmas_ holidays of the negroes, i., 97; serenade in San Augustin,
375; presents to slaves, ii., 180.
_Church_ edifices, value of, in Georgia, ii., 388.
_Churches_ of coloured people in Washington, i., 36; description of a
religious service in New Orleans, 308.
_Claiborne_ (Alabama), curious mode of loading cotton at, i., 275.
_Clay, Mr. Cassius_, ii., 281.
_Climate_ of cotton lands, reckoned unsuitable for white labourers,
ii., 256.
_Clothing of slaves_, i., 46, 105; ii., 200; fondness for finery, 201.
_Coal_, beds of, in Virginia, i., 55; extensive fields of, ii., 365.
_Coloured Church_ members, statistics of, ii., 222; hollowness of their
professions, 225.
_Columbus_ (Georgia), i., 273; extensive manufactures, 274; frequent
distress of white labourers, 274; wretched hotel accommodation, 274.
_Conspiracy_ to overawe the North, i., 6.
_Comparison_ of the moral and social condition of the negro, in Slave
and Free States, ii., 238.
_Corporeal punishment_, severe instance of, witnessed, ii., 205.
_Cottage_ in Louisiana, a night spent in, ii., 38; superior manners of
the inmates, 39.
_Cotton_, fallacies with respect to its influence, i., 5; the monopoly
not beneficial to the Slave States, 8; neglected resources of the
so-called cotton States, 12; profitable cultivation, 15; number of
slaves engaged in cotton culture, 17; profits of large and small
planters, 18; limited area devoted to its growth, 24; effect of low
prices on abolition, 201; reckless loading on steamboats, 275; chiefly
produced in the valley of the Mississippi, 342; expense of raising,
ii., 182; planting and tillage the chief items, 253; advantages of
free labour, 262, 268; possibility of greatly increasing the cotton
supply, 269.
‘_Cotton Planter_,’ the, extract from, ii., 186.
_Cotton-planters_, general characteristics of, i., 18, 276, 343; their
want of the comforts of civilized life, 19, 137; their hospitality
generally a matter of business, ii., 95; sudden acquisition of wealth
by, 158.
_Counties_ of Georgia, statistics of, ii., 385.
“_Crackers_” of Georgia, religious service among the, i., 265; at
Columbus, 275.
_Creoles_, French, i., 338; ii., 33; their passion for gambling, 45;
general character and mode of life, 46.
_Crockett_ (Eastern Texas), scarcity of provisions at, ii., 2.
_Cruelty_ of negro slaveholders, i., 336.
_Cuba_, emancipation law of, i., 257; probable effect of its annexation
on sugar-planting in Louisiana, ii., 50.
‘_Daily News, the London_,’ extracts from, ii., 189, 190; letter in,
322.
_Dancing_, fondness of negroes for, ii., 72.
_Danger_ of the South, ii., 338.
_Darby, Mr._, on the effects of climate, ii., 257.
_De Bow, Mr._, his ‘Compendium of the Census,’ quoted, i., 19, 20, 24;
his ‘Review,’ quoted, on the valley of the Mississippi, ii., 63; on
the want of education, 293; ‘Resources of the South,’ 182, 227, 265,
310; his charges against the author, 311; on negro capacity, 345; on
abolitionist books, 360.
_Deep River_, extensive fisheries, i., 149; mode of fishing described,
150; expenditure of gunpowder, 151; removal of stumps of trees from the
bottom, 151; mode of operation, 151; negro divers, 152; cheerful and
willing to work, 153.
_Deer_, ingenious mode of killing, ii., 197.
_Deserted plantations_ in Texas, ii., 1.
_Diseases_ peculiar to negroes, i., 122; malaria, 235; yellow fever,
259; ii., 260.
_Dismal Swamp_, i., 144; importance of the lumber trade, 144;
character and mode of life of slaves employed as lumbermen, 146; their
superiority over field-hands generally, 148; a refuge for runaway
negroes, 155.
_Distances_, discrepancies in estimating, ii., 31.
_Distress_, in 1855, in New York, ii., 243; in the Southern States, 248.
_Divers_, skill and perseverance of slaves employed as, i., 151.
_Dogs_ used for hunting negroes, i., 156; ii., 120, 122, 178, 184.
_Domestic servants_, their great value in the South, i., 125; their
cost in proportion to white domestics, 125; a Southern lady’s
description of her household, 126; their carelessness, 131; in Eastern
Texas, ii., 12; indifference to scolding, 93.
_Douglas, Mrs._, on Amalgamation, i., 307.
_Drapetomania_, a disease peculiar to negroes, i., 122.
_Drivers_, selection of, i., 249; their qualifications and duties, 249;
their general character, 250.
“_Driving_,” i., 135; ii., 178, 201.
_Duel_, savage conduct and termination of, ii., 231.
_Dutch-French_ farmer, conversation with a, ii., 39.
_Dysæsthesia Æthiopica_, a disease peculiar to negroes, i., 122.
_Economy_, political, of Virginia, i., 108.
_Eggs_, negroes well supplied with, i., 103, 281; a circulating medium,
254.
_Education_, want of provision for, in the South, ii., 292.
_Educational_ projects in Mississippi, ii., 156; statistics of Northern
and Southern States, 331.
_Ellison, Mr._, on ‘Slavery and Secession,’ i., 58, _note_.
_Engineers_, slaves employed as, i., 240.
_English_ mechanic at New Orleans, conversation with, i., 296.
_Enlightenment_ of Christianized Africans, specimens of the, ii., 89,
225; a “pious” negro, 89.
_Epidemic_ of 1820, in the Southern States, i., 258; admirable conduct
of the slaves, 259.
_Epitaphs_ in negro burial-ground, i., 226.
_Excitement_ of blacks, at their religious meetings, i., 259, 309.
_Extravagance_ and wastefulness of the blacks, i., 98.
“_Eyebreaker_,” black gnat so called, its attacks on cattle, ii., 41.
_False assertion_ of the superior material condition of Southern slaves
to that of Northern and European labourers, ii., 242.
_Famine_ of 1855, its effect in New York, ii., 243; extracts from
Southern newspapers during, 248; how felt in the Slave States, 248.
_Farm_, in Maryland, described, i., 32; on James River, 52; description
of a, cultivated by free labour, 92; employment of Irishmen, 95.
_Farm-lands_, comparative value in Slave and Free States, i., 11, 35,
114.
_Farmer_, conversation with a free-labour, in Tennessee, on slavery,
ii., 140.
“_Fast man_” in Mississippi, ii., 154.
_February_ weather in Georgia, i., 227.
_Feliciana_, beauty of the region, ii., 143.
_Field-hands_ on a rice plantation, classification of, i., 246.
_Filthiness_ of negroes, ii., 200.
_Fires_ in the open air, negro fondness for, i., 215.
_Fisheries_ in North Carolina, i., 149; interesting and novel
operations, 150.
_Fleas_, mode of destroying by an ingenious negro, i., 104, _note_.
_Food_, supplied to the slaves in Virginia, i., 101; on a Georgia rice
plantation, 244; on a Mississippi plantation, ii., 179, 195; generally
in the South, 240, 241.
_Frambœsia_, or Yaws, slaves peculiarly subject to, i., 123.
_Free Labour_, plantation in Virginia cultivated by, i., 92.
_Fruit-trees_, supplied by a peddler, ii., 74.
_Funeral_, negro, in Richmond, i., 43; ludicrous features of, 44.
‘_General Gabriel’s_’ rebellion, i., 42.
_Georgia_, winter climate of, i., 227; “show plantations,” 230; strange
appearance and language of the rustics, 231; statistics of seaboard
district of, ii., 295, 385; worn-out cotton lands, 296.
_Germans_, their patient industry and docility as labourers, i., 33,
195; in Eastern Texas, ii., 19; in Western Texas, 96; immigration to
Texas, 102; their influence, 102; schools, 103; conversation with a
persevering German, 164; at Natchez, 171; superior quality of the
cotton picked by, 263; cultivation of cotton by, in Texas, 266.
_Glue-manufacturer_, his reasons for employing whites, i., 194.
_Grades_ of coloured people, i., 294.
_Graniteville_ Manufacturing Company, of South Carolina, improvement in
the condition of their operatives, ii., 286.
_Grave-yard_ for negroes, i., 224.
_Gregg, Mr. W. H._, quoted, ii., 286, 287, 301.
_Griscom, Mr. T. R._, on slave labour, i., 133, 135.
_Grog-shops_, their evil effects on the slaves, i., 251; homicide of a
negro, 253, _note_.
_Guano_, the Hon. W. Newton on the beneficial effects resulting from
its introduction, i., 101.
_Hammond, Governor_, on the influence of cotton, i., 7; on slavery,
ii., 228.
_Handbill_ of a North Carolina innkeeper, i., 163.
_Harper, Chancellor_, on the tendency of slavery to elevate the female
character, i., 222; his ‘Address,’ quoted, ii., 278.
‘_Harper’s Weekly_,’ quoted, ii., 158.
‘_Hernando Advance_,’ quoted ii., 147.
_Highlands_, feelings of inhabitants of, with regard to slavery, ii.,
129, 131, 135; their dislike of negro competition, 137; their manners
and phraseology, 137; general ignorance, 138.
_Hiring_ a saddle-horse, i., 61; lucid directions for an intricate
journey, 62.
_Hogs_, raising of, ii., 176; large plantations not suited to, 177.
_Homochitto_ ferry, ii., 164.
_Honesty_, instances of, among slaves, i., 148, 259; ii., 213, _note_.
_Horses_ in Natchez, ii., 167; objections of a Texas drover to “iron on
their feet,” 54.
_Hospitality_, reputation of the South for, generally unwarranted, ii.,
282; instances of its refusal, 315.
_Hotels_, at Washington, i., 28; Richmond, 51, 55; Norfolk, 160;
Gaston, 168; Fayetteville, 183; specimen of, in Eastern Texas, ii.,
5; first-class, at Memphis, 56; bill of fare and its result, 57; at
Woodville, dress-etiquette and wretched arrangements, 148.
‘_Household Words_,’ extract from, ii., 258.
_Houses_ of slave population in Virginia, i., 87, 104; in South
Carolina, 207; Georgia, 233, 237; Mississippi, ii., 68.
_Houston County_, ii., 1; deserted plantations, 1; scarcity of
provisions, 2; runaway mulatto captured by a negro, 21.
_Hunting_ a runaway slave in the back country, ii., 161.
“_Idee of Potasun_,” extraordinary composition of “the best medicine,”
i., 169.
_Ignorance_ of a planter’s son, ii., 90; of the father, 91; of a
respectable farmer, 130.
_Illinois_, a farmer of, on the condition of South-western Slave
States, ii., 308.
_Immersion_, fondness of religious negroes for, ii., 72.
_Impetuosity_ of the Southerners, ii., 327.
_Improvement_ in the condition of slaves within the last twenty years,
ii., 101.
_Indian_ farms in Mississippi, ii., 105.
_Indians_, in Louisiana, ii., 38; costume of Choctaws and Alabamas, 38;
hired to hoe cotton, 93.
_Intelligence_ and industry of negroes on a Mississippi plantation,
ii., 79.
_Irishmen_, employment of, i., 95; the best labourers to be obtained,
95; too self-confident and quarrelsome, 195; Germans preferred to them,
195; labourers to negro masons, 297.
_Iron-mining_ in Alabama, ii., 115; conversation with a miner, 116;
wages earned, 117.
_Italians_ at Natchez, ii., 169; their character by one of themselves,
170.
_James River_, i., 52, 142.
_Jefferson_, on the moral sense of negroes, i., 106; on the evils of
slavery, ii., 231.
_Jerked beef_, preparation of, ii., 25.
_Jews_, settlement of, in Southern towns, i., 252.
“_Jodel_,” the musical yell of the South Carolina negro, i., 214.
_Jones, Rev. C. C._, quoted, ii., 225.
‘_Journal of Commerce_,’ letter to, by a Virginian, on the scarcity of
labourers, i., 111.
_Kentucky_, negro-trader of, ii., 44.
_Killing_ negroes, viewed merely as an offence against property, ii.,
190.
_Labour_ of slaves, compared with that of labourers in Free States, i.,
10, 137; ii., 382; influence of the association in labour of slaves and
free-men, i., 300; cost of, in the Border States, ii., 380; difference
between slave and free, 382.
_Land_, value of, i., 114; in Virginia and Pennsylvania, ii., 369.
_Liberation_ of slaves on a plantation in Virginia, happy results of,
i., 92.
_Liberia_, emigration to, i., 149, 335.
_Liberty_, county of (Georgia), interest of the planters in the
well-being of their slaves, ii., 215; statistics of, 388.
_Licentiousness_, comparative, of North and South, i., 307.
_Liquor_, traffic with slaves, evils of, i., 251; habit of pilfering to
procure it, 252.
_Log-cabin_ in North Carolina, i., 180; in South Carolina, 206, 213; in
Eastern Texas, 367.
_Log-roads_ in the swamp, i., 145.
_Longstreet_, Judge, his ‘Georgia Scenes,’ quoted, ii., 297.
_Lorettes_, the, of New Orleans, i., 302; a quasi-marriage, 303;
economy of the system, 306.
_Louisiana_, laws of, favourable to negroes, i., 101; a negro’s opinion
of, compared with Virginia, 334; contrast of manners in, and in Texas,
ii., 31; good-nature of the people, 31; miserable condition of the
poorer planters, 44; disregard of slave-laws in, 47; Sunday-work, 47;
insecurity of slaveholding interest, 51.
_Lumberers_, slave, habits and mode of life in the swamp, i., 146;
superior to most slaves, 148.
_Lumber-trade_ in the Dismal Swamp, i., 145.
_Lying_, almost universal among slaves, i., 105.
_Maine Law_, arguments for, in the South, i., 253.
_Malaria_ of rice-fields, i., 235.
_Management_ of slaves, increasing difficulty of the, i., 252.
_Manchac Spring_, a well-ordered plantation, ii., 15.
_Manufactures_, beneficial effect of, on the community, i., 25; ii.,
286.
_Marriage_, indifference of negroes to, ii., 80.
_Maury, Lieutenant_, on the advantageous situation for commerce of
Norfolk (Virginia), i., 143.
_Medical survey_, ii., 197.
_Memphis_, ii., 55.
‘_Methodist Protestant_,’ the, quoted, ii., 228.
_Methodists_, their opinion on slavery, ii., 140; their five ‘Christian
Advocates,’ 140, _note_.
_Mexicans_, dislike of Americans to, ii., 19.
_Mill’s_ ‘Political Economy,’ quoted, ii., 338.
_Miner_, conversation with a, ii., 115.
_Mineral_ treasures of Virginia, ii., 365.
_Misrepresentation_, charge of, against the author, ii., 311.
_Missionary_ system, slavery as a, ii., 215.
_Mississippi River_, cotton plantations on the, i., 13, 17, _note_;
ii., 59; rich planters, 158; number of slaves on a plantation, 159.
_Mississippi_, feeling in, against slavery, ii., 98, 109; condition of
the slaves, 101.
_Mississippi, Northern_, remarkable plantation in, ii., 67; all the
negroes able to read, 70; their religion and morals, 71.
_Mobile_ (Alabama), description of, i., 282; scarcity of tradesmen and
mechanics, 283; chief business of the town, 283; English merchants,
owners of slaves, 284.
_Montgomery_ (Alabama), i., 274.
_Morals_ of white children suffer from association with slaves, i.,
222; ii., 229.
‘_Morehouse Advocate_,’ the, quoted, i., 298.
_Mulatto_, a runaway, captured by a negro, ii., 21; their value
compared with pure blacks, 82, 211.
_Murder_ of a young lady by a negro girl, i., 125, _note_.
_Music_, negro fondness for, ii., 73, 221.
_Nachitoches_ (Louisiana), i., 358.
_Nacogdoches_ (E. Texas), ii., 1; difficulty of procuring needful
supplies for our journey, 2.
_Names_ of blacks, ii., 208.
_Natchez_, gambling at, ii., 154; beauty of the neighbouring country,
165; the town described, 166; view of the Mississippi from the Bluff,
168; conversation with an Italian at, 169.
‘_National Intelligencer_,’ the, quoted, i., 143.
_Nebraska Bill_, opinions of, ii., 135, 141.
_Negroes_, numbers engaged in cotton culture, i., 17; their increased
value, 26; appearance of, in Virginia, 33; an illegal meeting at
Washington, 36; problem of Southern gentlemen with respect to, 61;
their Christmas holidays, 74; how they live in the swamp, 96, 155;
their cunning to avoid working for their masters’ profit, 99; alleged
incapacity of exercising judgment, 100; kind treatment in Louisiana,
101, 328, 338; proverbial habit of lying, 105; agrarian notions,
106; universally pilferers, 106; their simulation of illness, 118;
Dr. Cartwright’s work on their diseases, 122; runaways in the swamp,
155; mode of hunting them, 156; superior character of those employed
in the turpentine forest, 188; repulsive appearance of, on a Carolina
plantation, 208; their love for fires in the open air, 215; occasional
instances of trustworthiness and intelligence, 240; employed in the
cultivation of rice, 243; field-hands, 245; effect of organization of
labour, 248; permission to labour for themselves after working hours,
251; evil effects of grog-shops, 251; excitement at religious meetings,
259, 315; their jocosity, 281; engaged, in cultivation of sugar, 319,
328; their thoughts of being free, 334, 339; capacity for learning,
ii., 70, 99; mode of working in Mississippi, 178; treated as mere
property on large plantations, 192; general character of, 221. See
_Slaves_.
_Negro consumption_, i., 123.
_Negro_ slaveowners in Louisiana, i., 336; their cruelty, 336.
_Negro-traders_ in Louisiana and Kentucky, ii., 44.
_New Orleans_, arrival at, i., 290; first impressions, 291; the
French quarter, 291; cathedral, 293; mixture of races, 294; a lot of
twenty-two negroes, 295; number of free labourers, 299; manners and
morals of the citizens, 302; association with mulatto and quadroon
females, 302.
‘_New Orleans Crescent_,’ quoted, i., 300, 301.
‘_New Orleans Delta_,’ on justice to slaves, ii., 185.
_Newton_, the Hon. Willoughby, on the introduction of guano, i., 101.
‘_New York Times_,’ letters to, on slave and free labour, i., 134, 135;
ii., 268.
_Norfolk_ (Virginia), its filthy condition, i., 142; natural advantages
for trade and commerce, 143; market gardens, 153; hotel accommodation,
159.
‘_Norfolk Argus_,’ the, quoted, i., 154.
“_Norther_,” a, ii., 6; disinclination to labour caused by, 9.
_Nott, Dr._, his ‘Essay on the Value of Life in the South,’ quoted,
ii., 257.
_Oak-woods_, near Natchez, ii., 165.
_Ohio_, produce per acre compared with that of Virginia, ii., 255.
“_Old Family_,” the traditional, of Virginia or South Carolina, ii.,
335.
“_Old Man Corse_,” an Italian-French emigrant, ii., 32; his house and
family, 32; conversation with a negro, 34.
_Old Settler’s_, a night at an, in Eastern Texas, ii., 4.
_Opelousas_ (Louisiana), ii., 30.
_Overseers_, character of, i., 53, 94; ii., 184, 189; a kind and
efficient one on a Carolina plantation, i., 208; stringent terms of
contract, 250; precaution against undue corporeal punishment, 251;
surly behaviour of one in Mississippi, ii., 94; another specimen, 143;
a night in an overseer’s cabin, 175; wages of, 185, 195; their want of
consideration for slaves, 189.
_Passes_ to negroes, forged, i., 301.
_Patent Medicines_, ii., 175.
_Patent Office Reports_ for 1847 and 1852, quoted, i., 115.
“_Patriarchal Institution_,” a favourable aspect of the, i., 236.
_Peddlers_ of tobacco, i., 209; of cheap literature, 345.
_Peripneumonia notha_, or cold plague, i., 123.
_Phillips, Mr. M. W._, on plantation economy, ii., 186.
_Physical_ power, necessary to maintain discipline among slaves, i.,
124.
‘_Picayune, The_,’ quoted, i., 343; ii., 211.
“_Plank-dancing_,” ii., 73.
_Plantations_ in South Carolina described, i., 207, 233; in Georgia,
243; in Louisiana, 317; Creole plantation, 340; in Eastern Texas, 372;
ii., 9, 14; in Mississippi, 67, 90; ignorance of proprietor, 90; the
most profitable one visited, described, 193; the manager and overseers,
194; arrangements for the slaves, 195; their rate of increase, 209;
indiscriminate intercourse, 209; statistics of, 236.
_Planters_, characteristics of, i., 18, 19, 137, 276, 343; comfortless
living of, in Eastern Texas, ii., 10, 14; Creole, in Louisiana, 46;
their passion for increasing their negro stock, 48; life of, compared
with that of men of equal property in New York, 48; conversation with
a nervous planter, 152; hospitality of, in Mississippi, 163; general
character of those of the South, 230, 272.
_Plough-girls_, ii., 201.
_Polk, Bishop_, his description of slavery in the Red River county,
ii., 213, _note_.
_Poor whites_ in Virginia, i., 81, 95; their condition worse than that
of the slaves, 83; their reluctance to do the work of slaves, 112;
degraded condition of, in the turpentine forest, 188; their belief in
witchcraft, 189; of South Carolina, 231; trading with them injurious to
the negroes, 252; girls employed in the cotton-mills at Columbia, 273;
in Eastern Texas, their dishonesty, 372; engaged in iron mining, ii.,
115; in Mississippi, 196; feeling of irritation against, 355.
_Preacher_, Methodist, tales of “nigger” hunting by, ii., 122.
_Preachers_, negro, i., 309.
_Presbyterian minister_, employed by Georgia planters to instruct the
blacks, ii., 215; his opinions on slavery, 216 _et seq._
_Price-current_ of slaves at Richmond, Virginia, ii., 374.
_Progress_, comparative, of North and South, i., 25.
_Pronunciation_, effect of, on names, ii., 32.
_Property_ aspect of slavery, ii., 183.
_Privileged classes_ of the South, their condition and character,
ii., 272; their assertion of the beneficence of slavery, 273; their
two methods of vindicating it, 276; their claims to high-breeding and
hospitality generally unwarranted, 282; instances of the opposite
qualities, 315 _et seq._; their revengeful disposition, 327.
_Public worship_ in the South, provisions for, i., 259, 261.
_Purchase_ of a plantation, a gambling operation, i., 321.
_Quadroons_ at New Orleans, their beauty and healthiness, i., 294,
303; their cultivated tastes, 305; peculiar characteristics of their
association with whites, 305.
_Quakers_, negro opinion of, ii., 37.
_Racing_ on the Red River, i., 351.
_Railroads_, in Virginia, i., 38, 55; want of punctuality, 56, 141;
in North Carolina, 161; disregard of advertised arrangements, 167;
desirable improvements, 170; in South Carolina, 216; their superiority
in Georgia, 272.
_Raleigh_ (North Carolina), described, i., 170; desolate aspect of the
country around, 171.
_Rations_ of U. S. Army, compared with allowances to slaves, ii., 240.
_Red River_, cotton plantations on the, i., 13; preparations for a
voyage up the, 343; supper and sleeping arrangements, 350; a good shot,
352.
_Religion_, want of reverence for, i., 262; ii., 89, 104, 220.
_Religious condition_ of the South, i., 261; proportion of ministers to
people, 261; rivalry and jealousy of different sects, 262; religious
instruction to slaves objected to, ii., 214; general remarks on
religious professions in the slaves, 220.
_Religious service_ in a meeting-house in Georgia, i., 205; in a negro
chapel at New Orleans, 308.
_Remonstrance_ by South Carolina planters against religious instruction
to negroes, ii., 214.
_Revival_ among the slaves, ii., 222.
_Rice plantation_, a model one visited, i., 235; house servants and
field-hands, 236; negro-quarters, 237; nursery for black children,
238; a rice-mill, 239; burning stubble, 243; ploughing, 244; food of
the slaves, 244; field gangs, 245; task-work, 247; important duties
of drivers, 249; limitation of power of punishment, 251; trade on the
plantation, 254.
_Richmond_, Virginia, described, i., 40; railway economy, 42; negro
funeral, 43; ludicrous oratory, 44; Sunday appearance of coloured
people, 45; their demeanour to whites, 47; “Slaves for sale or hire,”
50; farm on James River, 52; coal-pit, 54.
‘_Richmond American_,’ the, quoted, i., 125, _note_; ‘Enquirer,’ ii.,
364; ‘Whig,’ 370.
_Ruffin, Mr. Edmund_, quoted, ii., 303.
_Runaway slaves_, i., 119, 155; ii., 7; advertisements of, 157; cure
for, ii., 6; pursuit of one, 20; hunting with dogs, 120, 122, 178;
stocks for punishment of, 161; conflict with a runaway, 161, _note_;
favourite lurking-ground for, 183.
_Russell, Mr._, his ‘North America: its Agriculture, &c.,’ quoted, ii.,
176, _note_, 182, 252, 256; mistaken views of, with respect to free and
slave labour, 252 _et seq._
_Sabine River_, country on each side described, ii., 24; coarseness
of the inhabitants, 25; a night with a gentleman of the country, 25;
“figures of speech,” 27.
_San Augustin_ (Eastern Texas), i., 374; Presbyterian and Methodist
universities merged in a “Masonic Institute,” 375.
_St. Francisville_, ii., 143; neighbouring country described, 145;
appearance of the slaves, 146.
_Savannah_ (Georgia), commerce and prospects of, i., 273.
_Scripture_ expressions, their familiar use by the negroes, i., 262; a
dram-seller’s advertisement, 263.
_Seguin, Dr._, on the capacity of the negro, ii., 344.
_Separation_ of North and South inconsistent with the welfare of
either, i., 1.
_Sermons_ by negroes, i., 311.
_Settlement_, negro, described, i., 237.
“_Show Plantations_,” i., 230.
_Sickness_, real and feigned, of slaves, i., 96, 118; ii., 198, 199.
_Skilled_ labour, negroes employed in, i., 240.
_Slavery_, Jefferson’s opinion on, i., 92; practicability of rapidly
extinguishing, 255; cruelty a necessity of, 355; strong opinion
against, of a Mississippi planter, ii., 98; of a Tennessee farmer, 140;
necessary to produce cheap cotton, ii., 252.
_Slaveholders_, opinions of, on slavery, i., 53, 60, 332, 354; ii., 92;
American, French, and negro slaveowners, 336, 337.
_Slave-mart_, at Richmond, i., 50; at Houston, ii., 22.
_Slaves_, liberated, doing well in Africa, i., 92; prospects of those
going North, 93.
_Slaves_, their value as labourers, i., 16, 94; as domestic servants,
125; causes of the high prices given for them, 16; number engaged in
cultivating cotton, 17; number annually exported from slave-breeding
to cotton States, 58; proportion of workers to slaves maintained,
59; improvement in their conditions, 94; their food and lodging
in Virginia, 102, 104; their clothing, 105; subject to peculiar
diseases, 122; necessity of humouring them, 128; have no training as
children, 131; work accomplished in a given time, 133; “driving,” 135;
increasing difficulties in their management, 252; instance of their
trustworthiness, 259; best method of inducing them to exert themselves,
328; bad effect of their association with white labourers, 330; and of
their dealings with petty traders, 331; condition of, on a profitable
plantation in Mississippi, ii., 195; worked hardest in the South-west,
202; some nearly white, 210; their religious instruction, 222;
impolicy of allowing them to cultivate patches, 238; auction at
Richmond described, 372. See _Negroes_.
_Slave States_, condition of the people, i., 8; not benefited by their
cotton monopoly, 8; dearness of slave-labour, 10, 94; antipathy of the
whites to work, 22; small proportion of the area devoted to cotton
cultivation, 24; their small contribution to the national treasury, 27;
general characteristics and features of the country, 85.
_Slave trade_, activity of, in Virginia, i., 57; difficulty of
obtaining statistics, 58.
_Sleeping-quarters_, unpleasant, ii., 87, 106; abundance of insect
vermin, 87; mode of keeping away gnats, 107.
‘_South Carolinian_,’ the, on planters and overseers, ii., 188.
_South_, danger of the, ii., 338; condition of the negro, 339; Southern
method of treatment dangerous, 344; unconscious habits of precaution,
346; apparent tranquillity deceptive, 348; police machinery, 350;
abolitionist literature, 358; cause of agitation, 361; impossibility of
acceding to the demands of the South, 362; threat of dissolution, 363;
probable result, 363.
‘_Southern Agriculturist_,’ the, quoted, ii., 182, 188.
‘_Southern Cultivator_,’ the, on the effect of the society of negroes
on their masters’ children, i., 222, _note_; on allowing negroes to
cultivate “patches,” 239, _note_.
_Stage-coach_ rides in North Carolina, i., 163, 174, 201; a swindling
driver, 163; cruelty to horses, 175; unexpected comforts of a piny-wood
stage-house, 177; in Mississippi, ii., 64.
_Stage-house_ at Fayetteville, described, i., 183.
_Steam-boats_: on Cape Fear River, i., 191; on the Alabama River,
275; passengers, 276; wastefulness and joviality of the crew, 281;
description of one on the Red River, 347; sleeping arrangements, 349;
life of the firemen, 350; deck-passengers, 350; a race, 351; gambling
on board, 353.
_Street-fights_ in Louisiana, ii., 53.
_Steward_, negro, on a rice plantation, importance of his office, i.,
240; privileges enjoyed by, 242.
_Subjugation_ of the South, its alleged impossibility, i., 2.
_Suffering_, occasional, different effect of, on the slave and free
labourer, ii., 251.
_Sugar_ plantation, in Louisiana, i., 317; the owner’s popularity,
318; mansion and offices, 319; arrangements for the slaves, 320; usual
expenses of carrying on, 321; ii., 236; mode of cultivation, i., 323;
planting the cane, 325; tillage, 327; grinding the cane, 328; increased
labour in grinding season willingly performed by the slaves, 328; late
improvements in the manufacture, 329.
_Suggestions_ for improving the condition of the negro, and preparing
him for freedom, i., 255.
_Sumner_ and Brooks, ii., 348.
_Sunday_, slave labour on, ii., 47, 181.
_Sweep-seines_, the largest in the world, used in the North Carolina
fisheries, i., 149.
“_Swell-heads_,” ii., 156, 166.
_Task-work_ general in Georgia and South Carolina, i., 247.
_Texas_, its prospect of becoming a Free State, ii., 102; influence of
the Germans, 102, 103.
_Texas, Eastern_, route across, i., 359; a day in the woods, 359;
plantation described, 359; a sick child, 361; the emigrant road, 365,
374; appearance of the emigrants, 365; the Red Lands, 373; Christmas
serenade, 375; a planter’s residence, ii., 9; his comfortless mode of
living, 10; promising sons, 10; literary dearth, 10; interest taken
in foreign affairs, 11; domestic servants, 13; a night, with another
planter, 14; his habits of life, 14, 15; determination of inhabitants
to conceal unfavourable facts, 18; hatred of Mexicans, 19. _Texas,
South-eastern_, district described, ii., 23; imperfect drainage, 23;
sparsely settled, 24; not a desirable place of abode, 24.
_Tennessee, North-eastern_, contrast between the homes of a slaveholder
and a farmer without slaves, ii., 138.
_Tennessee_ squire, a night with, ii., 128; his notion of buying
Irishmen, 129.
_Tobacco_, plantation in Eastern Virginia, i., 88; reasons for growing,
88; negroes not able to cultivate the finer sorts, 89; ii., 254; their
mode of payment, i., 98, 140.
_Tobacco-peddling_ in South Carolina, i., 209.
_Treating_ in Mississippi, ii., 155.
_Tree-peddler_, his catalogue of “curosest trees,” ii., 75.
_Trinity Bottom_, ii., 2; fertility of surrounding lands, 3.
_Turpentine_ forest, character of slaves employed in, i., 188.
_Umbrellas_ carried by Alabama Indians on horseback, ii., 38.
‘_Uncle Tom’s Cabin_,’ conversation on, i., 345, 354; ii., 135.
_Vicksburgh_, ii., 55.
_Virginia_, characteristics of the population, i., 39; association of
blacks and whites, 40; the Public Guard, 41; rebellion of coloured
people in 1801, 42; mode of living of Virginia gentlemen at home, 89;
treatment of negroes in, 101; Economy of Virginia, 108; an Englishman’s
impressions on landing in the United States, 108; apparent indifference
to shabby living, 108; its causes, 108; difference of means required
to procure the same result, 108; a similar analogy between the North
and South, 109; an exceptional case, 109; high price paid for skilled
labour, 110; state of the community as a whole, 111; complaints of
scarcity of hands, 111; the employment of whites in occupations usually
performed by slaves distasteful both to master and labourer, 112; land
most valuable, where proportion of slaves to whites is least, 114;
comparative cost of slave and free labour, 117; advantages of the
latter in wages paid, 118; in freedom from loss by disability, 118;
frequency of feigned illness, 118; peculiar diseases of negroes, 122;
means of maintaining discipline, 124; want of the motives to exertion
possessed by free labourers, 131; influence of slave system on the
habits of the whole community, 131; general want of civilized comforts,
137; waste of natural resources, 138, 143; rule of make-shift, 138;
exceptional instances, 139; decay of its agriculture, ii., 303; mineral
wealth, 365; want of means of education, 371.
_Virginia, Eastern_, its resources neglected, i., 8; poverty of its
inhabitants, 10; description of a ride, 64; a strange vehicle, 65; the
school-house, 65; “Old Fields,” 66; desolate appearance of the country,
66; a farm-house, 70; a country “grosery,” 72; the court-house, 74; a
night at an old plantation with a churlish host, 76; the “supper-room”
and “sitting-room,” 79; precarious existence of poor white labourers,
81; the “bed-room,” 84; the planter’s charge for his “hospitality,” 85;
sparse population, 86; the meeting-house, 86; negro quarters, 87; a
tobacco plantation, 88.
_Voyage_ from Mobile to New Orleans, i., 285.
_Washington_, number of visitors at, i., 28; a boarding-house, 28;
the market-place, 34; price of land in the neighbourhood, 35; number
of white labourers, 35; character of the coloured population, 36; an
illegal meeting, 36.
_Watchman_, the, on a Carolina plantation, i., 240, 242.
_Water-snakes_, numbers of, ii., 24, 29.
‘_West Feliciana Whig_,’ account of slaughter of a runaway, ii.,
161.;
_Wharves_, absence of, on the Southern rivers, ii., 55.
_Whip_, constant use of the, ii., 202.
_Whipping_, of coloured preachers of the Gospel, i., 226; of a slave
girl, ii., 205.
_Wise, Governor_, on the decay of Virginia, ii., 303.
_Whites_, some slaves hardly to be distinguished from pure-blooded,
ii., 210.
_White’s_ ‘Statistics of Georgia,’ ii., 385.
_Wilmington_ (North Carolina), i., 97; destruction of a building at,
because erected by negroes, ii., 98.
‘_Wilmington Herald_,’ quoted, ii., 99, _note_.
_Witchcraft_, belief in, by poor whites, i., 189.
_Women_ employed in ploughing, ii., 201.
“_Wooding_” on Cape Fear River, i., 193.
_Woodville_ (Mississippi), ii., 148; dress etiquette, 148;
neighbourhood described, 149; robberies, 149.
_Yazoo Bottoms_, the son of a planter in, ii., 63; journey with him in
Northern Mississippi, 64; his dislike to babies, 66.
_Yellow Fever_, good conduct of negroes at Savannah during its raging,
i., 259; at Natchez, ii., 160.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Many freemen have been kidnapped in Illinois and sold into slavery.
[2] Evidently an allusion to the “underground railroad,” or smuggling
of runaway slaves, which is generally supposed to be managed mainly by
Quakers. This shows how knowledge of the abolition agitation must be
carried among the slaves to the most remote districts.
[3] Creole means simply native of the region, but in Louisiana (a
vast region purchased, by the United States, of France, for strategic
reasons, and now proposed to be filibustered away from us), it
generally indicates French blood.
[4] I also saw slaves at work every Sunday that I was in Louisiana. The
law permits slaves to be worked, I believe, on Sunday; but requires
that some compensation shall be made to them when they are—such as a
subsequent holiday.
[5] The following resolutions were proposed (I am not sure that they
were adopted) in the Southern Commercial Convention, at New Orleans, in
1855:
“_Resolved_,—That this Convention strongly recommends the Chambers of
Commerce and Commission Merchants of our Southern and South-western
cities to adopt such a system of laws and regulations as will put a
stop to the dangerous practice, heretofore existing, of making advances
to planters, in anticipation of their crops—a practice entirely at
variance with everything like safety in business transactions, and
tending directly to establish the relations of master and slave between
the merchant and planter, by bringing the latter into the most abject
and servile bondage.
“_Resolved_,—That this Convention recommend, in the most urgent manner,
that the planters of the Southern and South-western States patronize
exclusively our home merchants, and that our Chambers of Commerce,
and merchants generally, exert all their influence to exclude foreign
agents from the purchase and sale of produce in any of our Southern and
South-western cities.
“_Resolved, further_,—That this Convention recommend to the
legislatures of the Southern and South-western States to pass laws,
making it a penitentiary offence for the planters to ask of the
merchants to make such pecuniary advances.”
[6] The Junta was a filibustering conspiracy against Cuba.
[7] Cocoa is a grass much more pernicious, and more difficult of
extirpation when it once gets a footing upon a sugar plantation, than
the Canada thistle, or any other weed known at the North. Several
plantations have been ruined by it, and given up as worthless by their
owners.
[8] See “Resources;” article, “Mississippi,” etc.
[9] At Wilmington, North Carolina, on the night of the 27th of July
(1857), the frame-work of a new building was destroyed by a number of
persons, and a placard attached to the disjointed lumber, stating that
a similar course would be pursued in all cases, against edifices that
should be erected by negro contractors or carpenters, by one of which
class of men the house had been constructed. There was a public meeting
called a few days afterwards, to take this outrage into consideration,
which was numerously attended. Resolutions were adopted, denouncing the
act, and the authorities were instructed to offer a suitable reward
for the detection and conviction of the rioters. “The impression was
conveyed at the meeting,” says the _Wilmington Herald_, “that the
act had been committed by members of an organized association, said
to exist here, and to number some two hundred and fifty persons, and
possibly more, who, as was alleged, to right what they considered
a grievance in the matter of negro competition with white labour,
had adopted the illegal course of which the act in question was an
illustration.” Proceedings of a similar significance had occurred at
various points, especially in Virginia.
[10] See De Bow’s Review, for August, 1857 p. 117.
[11] RELIGION IN VIRGINIA.—A mass meeting of citizens of Taylor county,
Virginia, was held at Boothesville recently, at which the following,
among other resolutions, was passed unanimously:
“That the five _Christian Advocates_, published in the cities of New
York, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Chicago, having become
Abolition sheets of the rankest character, we ask our commonwealth’s
attorneys and post-masters to examine them, and, if found to be of an
unlawful character, to deal with them and their agents as the laws of
our State direct.”—_Washington Republic._
[12] “This latter received its beautiful and expressive name from its
beautifully variegated surface of hills and valleys, and its rare
combination of all the qualities that are most desired in a planting
country. It is a region of almost fairy beauty and wealth. Here are
some of the wealthiest and most intelligent planters and the finest
plantations in the State, the region of princely taste and more than
patriarchal hospitality,” etc.—_Norman’s New Orleans._
[13] “FINE PROSPECT FOR HAY.—While riding by a field the other day,
which looked as rich and green as a New England meadow, we observed
to a man sitting on the fence, ‘You have a fine prospect for hay,
neighbour.’ ‘Hay! that’s _cotton, sir_,’ said he, with an emotion that
betrayed an excitement which we cared to provoke no further; for we
had as soon sport with a rattlesnake in the blind days of August as a
farmer at this season of the year, badly in the grass. * * *
“All jesting aside, we have never known so poor a prospect for cotton
in this region. In some instances the fields are clean and well worked,
but the cotton is diminutive in size and sickly in appearance. We have
seen some fields so foul that it was almost impossible to tell what had
been planted.
“All this backwardness is attributable to the cold, wet weather that we
have had almost constantly since the planting season commenced. When
there was a warm spell, it was raining so that ploughs could not run to
any advantage; so, between the cold and the rain, the cotton crop is
very unpromising. * * *
“The low, flat lands this year have suffered particularly. Thoroughly
saturated all the time, and often overflowed, the crops on them are
small and sickly, while the weeds and grass are luxurious and rank.
“A week or two of dry hot weather will make a wonderful change in our
agricultural prospects, but we have no idea that any sort of seasons
could bring the cotton to more than an average crop.”—_Hernando (Miss.)
Advance, June 22, 1854._
[14] “Sectional excitement” had given a great impetus to educational
projects in the South, and the Mississippi newspapers about this
time contained numerous advertisements of a similar character to the
following:
“CALHOUN INSTITUTE—FOR YOUNG LADIES; MAÇON, NOXUBEE COUNTY,
MISSISSIPPI.—W. R. POINDEXTER, A.M., Principal and Proprietor.—The
above School, formerly known as the ‘Maçon Female Institute,’ will be
reopened on the first of October, 1855, with an entirely new corps of
teachers from Principal down. Having purchased the property at public
sale, and thus become _sole proprietor_, the Principal has determined
to use all means he can now command, as well as he may realize for
several years yet to come, in building, refitting and procuring such
appurtenances as shall enable him to contribute his full quota, as
a professional man, to the progress of the great cause of ‘SOUTHERN
EDUCATION.’”
[15] As “A SOUTHERN LAWYER,” writing for _Harper’s Weekly_
(February, 1859), observes: “The sudden acquisition of wealth in the
cotton-growing region of the United States, in many instances by
planters commencing with very limited means, is almost miraculous.
Patient, industrious, frugal, and self-denying, nearly the entire
amount of their cotton-crops is devoted to the increase of their
capital. The result is, in a few years large estates, as if by magic,
are accumulated. The fortunate proprietors then build fine houses,
and surround themselves with comforts and luxuries to which they were
strangers in their earlier years of care and toil.”
[16] The following is a characteristic newspaper item of this vicinity:—
From the _West Feliciana Whig_.—“On Saturday last, a runaway negro was
killed in the parish of East Baton Rouge, just below the line of this
parish, under the following circumstances: Two citizens of Port Hudson,
learning that a negro was at work on a flat boat, loading with sand,
just below that place, who was suspected of being a runaway, went down
in a skiff for the purpose of arresting him.
“Having seized him and put him into the skiff they started back, but
had not proceeded far when the negro, who had been at the oars, seized
a hatchet and assaulted one of them, wounding him very seriously. A
scuffle ensued, in which both parties fell overboard. They were both
rescued by the citizen pulling to them with the skiff. Finding him so
unmanageable, the negro was put ashore, and the parties returned to
Port Hudson for arms and a pack of negro dogs, and started again with
the intention to capture him. They soon got on his trail, and when
found again he was standing at bay upon the outer edge of a large raft
of drift wood, armed with a club and pistol.
“In this position he bade defiance to men and dogs—knocking the latter
into the water with his club, and resolutely threatening death to any
man who approached him. Finding him obstinately determined not to
surrender, one of his pursuers shot him. He fell at the third fire,
and so determined was he not to be captured, that when an effort was
made to rescue him from drowning he made battle with his club, and sunk
waving his weapon in angry defiance at his pursuers. He refused to give
the name of his owner.”
[17] This may be compared with the town of Springfield, county of
Sangammon, Illinois, in which, with a population of 19,228 (nearer to
that of Natchez than any other town I observe in the Free States), the
number of registered school children is 3,300, the public libraries
contain 20,000 volumes, and the churches can accommodate 28,000 sitters.
[18] “THE WASHINGTON REMEDIES—TO PLANTERS AND OTHERS.—These Remedies,
now offered to the public under the title of the Washington Remedies,
are composed of ingredients, many of which are not even known to
Botany. No apothecary has them for sale; they are supplied to the
subscriber by the native red-men of Louisiana. The recipes by which
they are compounded have descended to the present possessor, M. A.
MICKLEJOHN, from ancestors who obtained them from the friendly Indian
tribes, prior to and during the Revolution, and they are now offered to
the public with that confidence which has been gained from a knowledge
of the fact that during so long a series of years there has never been
known an instance in which they have failed to perform a speedy and
permanent cure. The subscribers do not profess these remedies will
cure _every_ disarrangement of the human system, but in such as are
enumerated below they feel they cannot fail. The directions for use
have only to be strictly followed, and however despairing the patient
may have been he will find cause for blissful _hope_ and renewed _life_.
“_These preparations are no Northern patent humbug_, but are
manufactured in New Orleans by a Creole, who has long used them in
private practice, rescuing many unfortunate victims of disease from the
grave, after they have been given up by their physicians as incurable,
or have been tortured beyond endurance by laceration and painful
operations.”
[19] “The bacon is almost entirely imported from the Northern States,
as well as a considerable quantity of Indian corn. This is reckoned
bad management by intelligent planters. * * * On this plantation as
much Indian corn was raised as was needed, but little bacon, which was
mostly imported from Ohio. The sum annually paid for this article was
upwards of eight hundred pounds. Large plantations are not suited to
the rearing of hogs; for it is found almost impossible to prevent the
negroes from stealing and roasting the pigs.” Mr. Russell, visiting the
plantation of a friend near Natchez.—_North America: its Agriculture_,
etc., p. 265.
[20] This would give at this season hardly less than sixteen hours of
plodding labour, relieved by but one short interval of rest, during the
daylight, for the hoe-gang. It is not improbable. I was accustomed to
rise early and ride late, resting during the heat of the day, while in
the cotton district, but I always found the negroes in the field when
I first looked out, and generally had to wait for the negroes to come
from the field to have my horse fed when I stopped for the night. I am
told, however, and I believe, that it is usual in the hottest weather,
to give a rest of an hour or two to all hands at noon. I never happened
to see it done. The legal limit of a slave’s day’s work in South
Carolina is fifteen hours.
[21] I was told by a gentleman in North Carolina, that the custom of
supplying molasses to negroes in Mississippi, was usually mentioned
to those sold away from his part of the country, to reconcile them to
going thither.
[22] In De Bow’s ‘Resources of the South,’ vol. i., p. 150, a table
is furnished by a cotton-planter to show that the expenses of raising
cotton are “generally greatly underrated.” It is to be inferred that
they certainly are not underrated in the table. On “a well improved
and properly organized plantation,” the expense of feeding one hundred
negroes, “as deduced from fifteen years’ experience” of the writer,
is asserted in this table to be $750 per annum, or seven dollars
and a half each; in this sum is included, however, the expenses of
the “hospital and the overseer’s table.” This is much less than the
expense for the same purposes, if the overseer’s account was true, of
the plantation above described. Clothing, shoes, bedding, _sacks for
gathering cotton, and so forth_, are estimated by the same authority
to cost an equal sum—$7.50 for each slave. I have just paid on account
of a day labourer on a farm in New York, his board bill, he being a
bachelor living at the house of another Irish labourer with a family.
The charge is twenty-one times as large as that set down for the slave.
[23] “I was informed that some successful planters, who held several
estates in this neighbourhood [Natchez] made it a rule to _change
their overseers every year_, on the principle that the _two_ years’
service system is sure to spoil them.”—_Russell’s North America: its
Agriculture_, etc., p. 258.
“Overseers are changed every year; a few remain four or five years, but
the average time they remain on the same plantation does not exceed two
years.”—_Southern Agriculturist_, vol. iv., p. 351.
[24] “On Monday last, as James Allen (overseer on Prothro’s
plantation at St. Maurice) was punishing a negro boy named Jack, for
stealing hogs, the boy ran off before the overseer had chastised
him sufficiently for the offence. He was immediately pursued by
the overseer, who succeeded in catching him, when the negro drew a
knife and inflicted a terrible gash in his abdomen. The wounds of
the overseer were dressed by Dr. Stephens, who pronounces it a very
critical case, but still entertains hope of his recovery.”—_Nachitoches
Chronicle._
[25] Mr. Russell makes an observation to the same effect with regard to
the Cuba plantations, p. 230. On these large cotton plantations there
are frequently more men than women, men being bought in preference to
women for cotton picking.
The contrary is usually the case on the small plantations, where the
profits of breeding negroes are constantly in view.
[26] “A woman, calling herself Violet Ludlow, was arrested a few
days ago, and committed to jail, on the supposition that she was a
runaway slave belonging to A. M. Mobley, of Upshur county, Texas, who
had offered through our columns a reward of fifty dollars for her
apprehension. On being brought before a justice of the peace, she
stated that she was a white woman, and claimed her liberty. She states
that she is a daughter of Jeremiah Ludlow, of Pike county, Alabama, and
was brought from that country in 1853, by George Cope, who emigrated
to Texas. After arriving in Texas, she was sold by George Cope to a
Doctor Terry, in Upshur county, Texas, and was soon after sold by him
to a Mrs. Hagen, or Hagens, of the same county. Violet says that she
protested against each sale made of her, declaring herself a free
woman. She names George Gilmer, Thomas Rogers, John Garret, and others,
residents of Pike county, Alabama, as persons who have known her from
infancy as the daughter of one Jeremiah Ludlow and Rene Martin, a widow
at the time of her birth, and as being a free white woman, and her
father a free white man. Violet is about instituting legal proceedings
for her freedom.”—_Shreveport Southwestern._
“Some days since, a woman named Pelasgie was arrested as a fugitive
slave, who has lived for more than twelve years in this city as a
free woman. She was so nearly white that few could detect any traces
of her African descent. She was arrested at the instance of a man
named Raby, who claimed her as belonging to an estate of which he is
heir-at-law. She was conveyed to the First District guard-house for
safe keeping, and while there she stated to Acting Recorder Filleul
that she was free, had never belonged to Raby, and had been in the
full and unquestioned enjoyment of her freedom in this city for the
above-mentioned period. She also stated that she had a house, well
furnished, which she was in the habit of letting out in rooms.”—_New
Orleans Picayune._
[27] “Bishop Polk, of Louisiana, was one of the guests. He assured
me that he had been all over the country on Red River, the scene of
the fictitious sufferings of ‘Uncle Tom,’ and that he had found the
temporal and spiritual welfare of the negroes well cared for. He had
confirmed thirty black persons near the situation assigned to Legree’s
estate. He is himself the owner of four hundred slaves, whom he
endeavours to bring up in a religious manner. He tolerates no religion
on his estate but that of the Church. He baptizes all the children,
and teaches them the Catechism. All, without exception, attend the
Church service, and the chanting is creditably performed by them, in
the opinion of their owner. Ninety of them are communicants, marriages
are celebrated according to the Church ritual, and the state of morals
is satisfactory. Twenty infants had been baptized by the bishop just
before his departure from home, and he had left his whole estate,
his keys, &c., in the sole charge of one of his slaves, without the
slightest apprehension of loss or damage. In judging of the position
of this Christian prelate as a slave-owner, the English reader must
bear in mind that, by the laws of Louisiana, emancipation has been
rendered all but impracticable, and, that, if practicable, it would
not necessarily be, in all cases, an act of mercy or of justice.”—_The
Western World Revisited._ By the Rev. Henry Caswall, M.A., author of
“America and the American Church,” etc. Oxford, John Henry Parker, 1854.
[28] In White’s ‘Statistics of Georgia’ (page 377), the citizens
of Liberty county are characterized as “unsurpassed for the great
attention paid to the duties of religion.”—Dr. Stevens, in his ‘History
of Georgia,’ describes them as “worthy of their sires,” who were, “the
moral and intellectual nobility of the province,” “whose accession
was an honour to Georgia, and has ever proved one of its richest
blessings.”—In the biography of General Scrivens the county of Liberty
is designated “proud spot, of Georgia’s soil!”—Dr. J. M. B. Harden,
in a medical report of the county, says: “The use of intoxicating
drinks has been almost entirely given up” by its people.—White says
(‘Statistics,’ p. 373), “The people of Liberty, from their earliest
settlement, have paid much attention to the subject of education.
Excellent schools are found in different portions of the county, and it
is believed a greater number of young men from Liberty graduate at our
colleges than from any [other] section of Georgia. Indeed, it has been
proverbial for furnishing able ministers and instructors.”
[29] The following newspaper paragraph indicates the wholesale way in
which slaves may be nominally Christianized:—
“REVIVAL AMONG THE SLAVES.—Rev. J. M. C. Breaker, of Beaufort, S.C.,
writes to the _Southern Baptist_, that within the last three months
he has baptized by immersion three hundred and fifty persons, _all
of them, with a few exceptions, negroes_. These conversions were the
result of a revival which has been in progress during the last six
months. On the 12th inst., he baptized two hundred and twenty-three
converts—all blacks but three—and the ceremony, although performed
with due deliberation, occupied only one hour and five minutes. This
is nearly four a minute, and Mr. Breaker considers it a demonstration
that the three thousand converted on the day of Pentecost could easily
have been baptized by the twelve apostles—each taking two hundred and
fifty—in an hour and thirteen minutes.”
[30] “A small farmer,” who “has had control of negroes for thirty
years and has been pursuing his present system with them for twenty
years,” and who “owning but a few slaves is able,” as he observes, “to
do better by them” than large planters, writing to Mr. De Bow, says:
“I have tried faithfully to break up immorality. I have not known an
oath to be sworn for a long time. I know of no quarrelling, no calling
harsh names, and but little stealing. _Habits of amalgamation, I cannot
stop._ I can only check it in name. I am willing to be taught, for I
have tried everything I know.” He has his field-negroes attend his
own family prayers on Sunday, prayer meetings at four o’clock Sunday
mornings, etc.—_De Bow’s Resources_, vol. ii., p. 337.
[31] The “Southern Presbyterian,” in reviewing some observations made
before a South Carolina Bible Society, in which it had been urged that
if slaves were permitted to read the Bible, they would learn from it to
be more submissive to the authority which the State gives the master
over them, says that the speaker “seems to be uninformed of the fact
that the Scriptures are read in our churches every Sabbath day, and
those very passages which inculcate the relative duties of masters and
servants in consequence of their textual, _i. e._ legally prescribed
connections, are _more frequently read_ than any other portions of the
Bible.”
[32] Organized action for the abolition of slavery in the island of
Java, has since been authentically reported.
[33] Twice it happened to come to my knowledge that sons of a planter,
by whom I was lodged while on this journey—lads of fourteen or
sixteen—who were supposed to have slept in the same room with me,
really spent the night, till after daybreak, in the negro cabins. A
southern merchant, visiting New York, to whom I expressed the view I
had been led to form of the evil of slavery in this way, replied that
he thought I over-estimated the evil to boys on the plantations, but
that it was impossible to over-estimate it in towns. “I have personal
knowledge,” he continued, “that there are but two lads, sixteen
years old, in our town, [a small market town of Alabama,] who have
not already had occasion to resort to remedies for the penalty of
licentiousness.” “When on my brother’s plantation, just before I came
North,” said another Southern merchant, on his annual visit to New
York, “I was informed that each of his family-servants were suffering
from ——, and I ascertained that each of my brother’s children, girls
and boys, had been informed of it, and knew how and from whom it had
been acquired. The negroes being their familiar companions, I tried
to get my brother to send them North with me to school. I told him he
might as well have them educated in a brothel at once, as in the way
they were growing up.”
[34] Jefferson fails to enumerate, among the evils of slavery, one
of its influences which I am inclined to think as distinct and as
baneful to us nationally as any other. How can men retain the most
essential quality of true manhood who daily, without remonstrance
or interference, see men beaten, whose position renders effective
resistance totally impracticable—and not only men, but women, too! Is
it not partially the result of this, that self-respect seldom seems
to suggest to an angry man at the South that he should use anything
like magnanimity? that he should be careful to secure fair play for
his opponent in a quarrel? A gentleman of veracity, now living in the
South, told me that among his friends he had once numbered two young
men, who were themselves intimate friends, till one of them, taking
offence at some foolish words uttered by the other, challenged him. A
large crowd assembled to see the duel, which took place on a piece of
prairie ground. The combatants came armed with rifles, and at the first
interchange of shots the challenged man fell disabled by a ball in
the thigh. The other, throwing down his rifle, walked toward him, and
kneeling by his side, drew a bowie knife, and deliberately butchered
him. The crowd of bystanders not only permitted this, but the execrable
assassin still lives in the community, has since married, and, as
far as my informant could judge, his social position has been rather
advanced than otherwise, from thus dealing with his enemy. In what
other English—in what other civilized or half-civilized community would
such cowardly atrocity have been endured?
[35] Richland District contains seven thousand white, and thirteen
thousand slave population. The Report is published in the _Charleston
Standard_, October 12th, 1854.
[36] “Most persons allow their negroes to cultivate a small crop of
their own. For a number of reasons the practice is a bad one. It is
next to impossible to keep them from working the crop on the Sabbath.
They labour at night when they should be at rest. There is no saving
more than to give them the same amount; for, like all other animals,
the negro is only capable of doing a certain amount of work without
injury. To this point he may be worked at his regular task, and any
labour beyond this is an injury to both master and slave. They will
pilfer to add to what cotton or corn they have made. If they sell
the crop and trade for themselves, they are apt to be cheated out of
a good portion of their labour. They will have many things in their
possession, under colour of purchases, which we know not whether they
have gained honestly.”—_Southern Cultivator._
[37] P. W. Fraser, p. 574, Pub. Doc. VI., 1846.
[38] Among the thousands of applicants for soup, and bread, and fuel,
as charity, I never saw, during “the famine” in New York, one negro.
Five Points Pease said to me, “The negro seems to be more provident
than the Celt. The poor blacks always manage to keep themselves more
decent and comfortable than the poor whites. They very rarely complain,
or ask for charity; and I have often found them sharing their food with
white people, who were too poor to provide for themselves.” A great
deal of falsehood is circulated and accredited about the sufferings of
the free negroes at the North. Their condition is bad enough, but no
worse than that of any men educated and treated as they are, must be;
and it is, on an average, far better than that of the slave.
[39] In the obscure country papers of Northern Alabama and Georgia, and
Western South Carolina, I have seen many more descriptions, similar
to these, of this famine; but I cannot now lay my hand on them. These
I have by accident, not having taken pains to collect them for this
purpose. In a district of the Slave States, where it is boasted that
more than a hundred bushels of maize to the acre has been raised, and
where not one out of five hundred of the people is engaged in any other
than agricultural industry, I have myself bought maize, which had been
raised by free labour, in Ohio, at two dollars a bushel.
[40] “North America, its Agriculture and Climate,” by Robert Russell,
Kilwhiss. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1857.
[41] De Bow, vol. iii., p. 342.
[42] See De Bow’s “Resources,” art. Tobacco.
[43] Vol. i., p. 175, “Resources.”
[44] In my Notes on Eastern Virginia, it was mentioned that a tobacco
planter informed me that he could not raise the finer sorts of tobacco
with profit, because he could not make his slaves take pains enough
with it; and in certain localities in Ohio, having a favourable soil
for the production of fine or high-priced tobacco, it appears that free
labour is engaged more profitably in the cultivation of tobacco than in
the cultivation of corn. It is the same in parts of Connecticut and of
Massachusetts. Except in these limited districts, however, it is found
that the labour of Ohio, as of Connecticut and Massachusetts, is more
profitably directed to the cultivation of Indian corn and other crops
than of tobacco.
[45] “Resources,” p. 175.
[46] Virginia, with 10,360,135 acres of improved land, produced,
according to the last census returns,
35,254,319 bushels of corn,
56,803,227 pounds of tobacco.
Ohio, with 9,851,493 acres of improved land, produced
59,078,695 bushels of corn,
10,454,449 pounds of tobacco.
The aggregate value of these two products alone, at present New York
prices, would be
Ohio $5,127,223,565
Virginia $3,564,639,385
Actual crops per acre, on the average, as returned by the marshals for
1849-50 (Census Compilation, p. 178):
Corn. Tobacco.
Ohio 36 bushels 730 pounds.
Virginia 18 ” 630 ”
[47] “North America, its Climate,” etc., p. 286.
[48] De Bow’s “Resources.” See “Seaboard Slave States,” pp. 463 and
586, for further southern evidence.
[49] A writer in “Household Words,” speaking of the “popular fallacy
that a man cannot do a hard day’s work in the climate of India,” says:—
“I have seen as hard work, real bone and muscle work, done by citizens
of the United Kingdom in the East, as was ever achieved in the cold
West, and all upon rice and curry—not curry and rice—in which the rice
has formed the real meal, and the curry has merely helped to give it a
relish, as a sort of substantial Kitchener’s zest, or Harvey’s sauce.
I have seen, likewise, Moormen, Malabars, and others of the Indian
labouring classes, perform a day’s work that would terrify a London
porter, or coal-whipper, or a country navvy, or ploughman; and under
the direct rays of a sun that has made a wooden platform too hot to
stand on in thin shoes, without literally dancing with pain, as I have
done many a day, within six degrees of the line.”
[50] Dr. Barton, of New Orleans, in a paper read before the Academy of
Science of that city, says: “The class of diseases most fatal in the
South are mainly of a ‘_preventible_ nature,’ and embraces fevers and
intestinal diseases, and depends mostly on conditions under the control
of man, as drainage, the removal of forest growth—of personal exposure
and private hygiene. The climate further north is too rigid the greater
part of the year for personal exposure to the open air, so essential
to the enjoyment of health, and when the extremes are great and rapid,
another class of maladies predominate—the pulmonary, as well as others
arising from crowding, defective ventilation and filth—exacting
preventive measures from the public authorities with as much urgency as
the worst fevers of the South.”
[51] Indian corn has been considered an exception, and there are
probably larger corn fields in Indiana than cotton fields in
Mississippi.
[52] I believe that plantations or agricultural operations devoted to a
single crop are, as a general rule, profitable in proportion to their
size in the Free States, unless, indeed, the market is a small one and
easily overstocked, which is never the case with the cotton market.
[53] Vol. i., p. 175, “Resources.”
[54] Some one can render a service to civilization by publishing
precisely what feudal rights, so called, were abolished in large parts
of Germany and Hungary in 1848, and what results to the commerce of the
districts affected the greater freedom and impulse to industry arising
therefrom has had. If I am rightly informed, trade, in many cases, both
export and import, has already much more than quadrupled in value,
thousands of peasants now demanding numerous articles and being able to
pay for them, which before only a few score or hundred proprietors were
expected to buy.
[55] From an “_Address on Climatology_,” before the Academy of Science,
by Dr. Barton, of New Orleans:—
“The institution of slavery operates by contrast and comparison; it
elevates the tone of the superior, adds to its refinement, allows more
time to cultivate the mind, exalts the standard in morals, manners,
and intellectual endowments; operates as a safety-valve for the evil
disposed, leaving the upper race purer, while it really preserves from
degradation, in the scale of civilization, the inferior, which we see
is their uniform destiny when left to themselves. The slaves constitute
essentially the lowest class, and society is immeasurably benefitted
by having this class, which constitutes the offensive fungus—the great
cancer of civilized life—a vast burthen and expense to every community,
under surveillance and control; and not only so, but under direction
as an efficient agent to promote the general welfare and increase
the wealth of the community. The history of the world furnishes no
institution under similar management, where so much good actually
results to the governors and the governed as this in the Southern
States of North America.”
“It is by the existence of slavery, exempting so large a portion
of our citizens from labour, that we have leisure for intellectual
pursuits.”—_Governor Hammond, in South. Literary Mess._
“Would you do a benefit to the horse or the ox, by giving him a
cultivated understanding, or fine feelings? So far as the _mere
labourer_ has the pride, the knowledge, or the aspirations of a free
man, he is unfitted for his situation, and must doubly feel its
infelicity. If there are sordid, servile, and laborious offices to be
performed, is it not better that there should be sordid, servile, and
laborious beings to perform them?”—_Chancellor Harper; Address to South
Carolina Institute._
“The relations between the North and the South are very analogous to
those which subsisted between Greece and the Roman Empire, after the
subjugation of Achaia by the Consul Mummius. The dignity and energy
of the Roman character, conspicuous in war and in politics, were not
easily tamed and adjusted to the arts of industry and literature.
The degenerate and pliant Greeks, on the contrary, excelled in the
handicraft and polite professions. We learn from the vigorous invective
of Juvenal, that they were the most useful and capable of servants,
whether as pimps or professors of rhetoric. Obsequious, dexterous,
and ready, the versatile Greeks monopolized the business of teaching,
publishing, and manufacturing in the Roman Empire—allowing their
masters ample leisure for the service of the State, in the Senate or in
the field.”—_Richmond Enquirer._
[56] The business committee of the South Carolina State Agricultural
Society reported, Aug. 9, 1855:—
“Our old fields are enlarging, our homesteads have been decreasing
fearfully in number. * * * We are not only losing some of our most
energetic and useful citizens to supply the bone and sinew of other
States, but we are losing our slave population, which is the true
wealth of the State, our stocks of hogs, horses, mules, and cattle
are diminishing in size and decreasing in number, and our purses
are strained for the last cent to supply their places from the
North-western States.”
[57] De Bow’s “Review,” vol. xviii. p. 790.
[58] “Georgia Scenes,” by the Rev. and Hon. Judge Longstreet, now
President of the University of Mississippi. Harper’s edition, p. 76.
[59] Address before the South Carolina Institute.
[60] Fifth Annual Report to Directors of Graniteville Company.
[61] Mr. Russell uses the language of England. There are several
collections of houses on this river bank, the inhabitants of which
would consider it an insult if they should hear such a humble term as
“village” applied to their pseudo towns and cities.
[62] “North America; its Agriculture and Climate,” p. 290.
[63] It was not long since estimated in the Legislature of Kentucky as
seven to one in that State.
[64] I fear that it must be confessed that this general rule has now
a multitude of exceptions in our large towns, where, in New York,
especially, we seem taking some pains to form a permanent lower class.
With the present great and apparently permanent falling off in the
European emigration it can hardly last, however.
[65] The ratio of white illiterate to white population, per cent., as
returned, is,
{Free States, 3.36
{Slave States 8.27
of the native population, over twenty years old, it is,
{Free States, 4.12
{Slave States 17.23
(Census Compendium, pp. 152, 153). The ability to merely read and write
may itself be of little value, but the fact of a child’s having had the
painstaking necessary to so far instruct him is in some degree a means
of measuring his other inherited wealth, and thus his breeding.
[66] “Resources,” vol. ii., pp. 197, 198.
[67] The late Mr. Brooks’ character should be honestly considered, now
that personal enmity toward him is impossible. That he was courteous,
accomplished, warm-hearted, and hot-blooded, dear as a friend and
fearful as an enemy, may be believed by all; but, in the South, his
name is yet never mentioned without the term gallant or courageous,
spirited or noble, is also attached to it; and we are obliged to ask,
why insist on this? The truth is, we include a habit of mind in these
terms which slavery has rendered, in a great degree, obsolete in the
South. The man who has been accustomed from childhood to see men beaten
when they have no chance to defend themselves; to hear men accused,
reproved, vituperated, who dare not open their lips in self-defence or
reply; the man who is accustomed to see other men whip women without
interference, remonstrance, or any expression of indignation, must have
a certain quality, which is an essential part of personal honour with
us, greatly blunted, if not entirely destroyed. The same quality which
we detest in the assassination of an enemy, is essentially constant
in all slavery. It is found in effecting one’s will with another,
when he cannot, if he would, defend himself. Accustomed to this in
every hour of their lives. Southerners do not feel magnanimity and the
“fair-play” impulse to be a necessary part of the quality of “spirit,”
courage, and nobleness. By spirit they apparently mean only passionate
vindictiveness of character, and by gallantry mere intrepidity.
[68] From the Introduction to “The Englishman in Kansas,” (by the
author of this work).
[69] That slaves have ever been burned alive has been indignantly
denied. The late Judge Jay told me that he had evidence in his
possession of negro burnings every year in the last twenty.
[70] 2 Devereaux’s North Carolina Reports, 263.
[71] The real object of the systematic mail robbery which is maintained
throughout the South, and of the censorship of the press which is
otherwise attempted, was once betrayed by a somewhat distinguished
Southern editor, Duff Green, in the _United States Telegraph_, in the
following words:—
“The real danger of this [slave insurrection] is remote. We believe we
have most to fear from the organized action upon the consciences and
fears of the slaveholders themselves; from the insinuation of their
dangerous heresies into our schools, our pulpits, and our domestic
circles. It is only by alarming the consciences of the weak and feeble,
and diffusing among our people a morbid sensibility on the question of
slavery, that the Abolitionists can accomplish their object.”
[72] Elsewhere the Messrs. Appleton are spoken of as “the great
Abolition publishers of New York.”
[73] Note the argument, I pray you, reader. Why, indeed? Why is there
not a Feejee Iliad? Are not the Feejees heathen, as Homer was? Why
should not the Book of Mormon be as good a thing as the Psalms of
David? Was not Joseph Smith also a polygamist?
[74] From the _Columbia_ (S. C.) _Times_, quoted without dissent in the
conservative South Carolina paper, the _Charleston Mercury_:—
“The loss that the South annually sustains by the running of slaves
into Canada, is of sufficient importance to justify her public men in
insisting upon some action of the Government of the United States in
the premises. And we confess our surprise that Southern statesmen have
submitted with so much patience to the annual robbery of thousands of
dollars’ worth of property to which she has as good a right as the
land they cultivate. The time is propitious for the acquisition of all
disputed rights from European powers. They cannot afford to break just
now with the United States. Let our public men move in the matter, and
we question not but that the President and the American Minister at
St. James’s will give the movement a cordial support. Besides, this is
a golden moment which may never return. Before we get another sound
man in the presidential chair, peace may be made in Europe, and the
European powers be less inclined to look with favour upon the demands
of America.”
[75] “While it is far more obvious that negroes should be slaves
than whites, for they are only fit to labour, not to direct; yet
the principle of slavery is itself right, and does not depend upon
difference of complexion. Difference of race, lineage, of language, of
habits, and customs, all tend to render the institution more natural
and durable; and although slaves have been generally whites, still the
masters and slaves have generally been of different national descent.
Moses and Aristotle, the earliest historians, are both authorities
in favour of this difference of race, but not of colour.”—_Richmond
Enquirer._
[76] Abstract of the Seventh Census, and the able work of Professor
Tucker, on the “Progress of the United States in Population and Wealth.”
[77] The population, following Mr. White, is given in round numbers,
from the State Census of 1845; average personal estate, per family of
citizens, reckoned from an official return, published in the “Soil of
the South” (Columbus, Georgia, 1852, p. 210), the amount given for each
county being divided by one-fifth the number of its population (for
families). Observations on education and the character of the people,
from “White’s Statistics of Georgia” (generally in quotations). School,
library, and church statistics, in figures from official United States
Census, 1850.
[78] The presence of these few planters, with their valuable human
property, makes the average nominal wealth of each white family, at
first sight, appear large. If, however, the slaves had been appraised
at only $500 each, which would be low, they would alone amount in value
in some counties to the sum assigned for the whole personal property
of the citizens. This item is not, therefore, trustworthy, but, in
comparing the coast and second tier counties, it serves to show the
great difference in the average wealth of the citizens of each. A
similar division of personal estate, as officially returned for the
city of New York, would give $4,660 to each family.
[79] “White’s Statistics,” p. 224.
[80] Hewitt, —; “Seaboard Slave States,” p. 528.