Although there was much of evil connected with slavery, much that tended
to weaken the master as well as to injure the slave, there was also a
brighter, kindlier side to the life of the slave which is not always
understood.
There was, for example, a great deal of difference between the life of a
slave on a plantation in Virginia, where master and slaves grew up
together as members of one household, and the life of a slave on a
similar plantation further South. In either case a large plantation was
always a little kingdom in itself, and in this little kingdom the black
man and the white man frequently learned to live together on terms of
intimacy and friendship such as would scarcely have been possible under
other conditions.
On one of these large plantations there were usually several types, or
one might almost say castes, among the slaves. There were first of all
the house servants, many of whom had grown up from childhood in the "Big
House" or mansion of the master. These servants usually became in time
very much attached to their masters and their master's children and were
often regarded as much a part of the household as any other member of
the family. It was to this class that the old servants belonged, of whom
so many interesting stories are told, illustrating the devotion of the
slaves to their masters.
One of the stories that has been repeated in more than one Southern
family relates how the old Southern servant followed his master to war;
watched over and cared for him faithfully during all the hardships of
the campaign, and finally, when that master had fallen in battle,
carried him back to his home to be buried.
There are many instances, also, of which one does not so often hear, in
which the friendship and devotion of the old servants to their master's
family continued after the Civil War was over and slavery was abolished.
Not infrequently these old slaves continued to work for their masters in
freedom much as they had done in slavery. Sometimes when the master's
family became poor, the former slave secretly supported them.
There is a story of one man who had agreed before the war broke out to
buy his freedom from his master for a certain sum. After freedom came he
continued to make the payments just the same until the entire sum was
paid, because he knew his master's family was poor and needed the money.
Another class of slaves on the big plantation was composed of the
artisans and skilled workmen of every kind, for every one of these large
plantations was organized, as nearly as possible, so as to provide for
every want of its inhabitants.
Beneath this class of skilled laborers there were the field hands, who
did all the common work under the direction of an overseer, sometimes
with the help of Negro "drivers."
In addition to all the others there was usually on every large
plantation a slave preacher, who might at the same time be a trusted
employee of one kind or another. He was at any rate a natural leader
among his own people, and often a man of great influence and authority
among the slaves, and was frequently a sort of intermediary between them
and their master.
The conditions of slavery were harder, as a rule, on the big plantations
farther South. These regions were usually peopled by a class of
enterprising persons who had come, perhaps, from Virginia or some of
the older slave states. They had removed to the new country in order to
find virgin soil, on which large fortunes were made in raising cotton.
In these regions, especially where the slaves were left in charge of an
overseer, whose sole function was to make the plantation pay, the slaves
came to be treated a great deal more like the mules and the rest of the
stock on the plantation. They were treated as if their whole reason for
existence consisted in the ability of their owners to use them to make
corn, cotton and sugar.
In spite of the bad reputation which the plantations in the far South
had among the slaves of Virginia, and in spite of the horror which all
the slaves in the border states had of being "sold South," there were
many plantations like those of Joseph and Jefferson Davis, the President
of the Southern Confederacy and his brother, where the relations between
the master and slave were as happy as one could ask or expect, under the
circumstances.
The history of the Davis family and of the two great plantations, the
"Hurricane" and the "Brierfield," which they owned in Mississippi, is
typical. In 1818 Joseph Davis, who was the elder brother of Jefferson,
and at that time a young lawyer in Vicksburg, took his father's slaves
and went down the river to a place now called Davis' Bend. He was
attracted thither by the rich bottom land, which was frequently
overflowed by the spring floods of the Mississippi.
At this time there were no steamboats on the Mississippi and the country
was wild and lonely. In a few years, with the aid of his slaves, Mr.
Davis succeeded in building up a plantation of about 5,000 acres, which
soon became known as one of the largest and richest in the whole State
of Mississippi, where there were many large and rich plantations.
Some years after the settlement at Davis' Bend, Joseph Davis was joined
by his brother Jefferson, who lived for several years on the adjoining
plantation, known as the "Brierfields."
Joseph Davis had peculiar notions about the government of his slaves. It
was a maxim with him that, "the less people are governed, the more
submissive they will be to control."
This idea he attempted to carry out in the government of his slaves.
Thus he instituted on the plantation a certain measure of
self-government. For example, his plantation, like that of his brother
Jefferson, was turned over, so far as its agricultural operations were
concerned, almost wholly into the hands of one of his slaves. Under the
direction of this man the land was surveyed, the levees constructed and
the buildings erected. This same man was allowed to conduct a store of
his own. He bought and sold goods, not only among the hands on the
plantation, but among the hands on other plantations. Sometimes Mr.
Davis himself was several hundred dollars in debt to him for goods
purchased.
Mr. Davis also instituted a jury system for the trial of minor offences
committed by his slaves. In a court thus constituted a jury of slaves
passed judgment on their fellows, Mr. Davis reserving for himself,
however, the pardoning power. When a slave could do better for himself
at some other form of work than day labor he was allowed the liberty to
do so, giving in money, or other equivalent, the worth of ordinary
service in the field. There was at one time a school on the plantation,
taught by a poor white man, in which the white children from the Big
House as well as some of the children of the more favorite slaves went
to school together.
In this novel and statesman-like way Joseph Davis sought to carry out
his notion of making the plantation, as near as possible under the
circumstances, a little self-governing community. After freedom came it
was Joseph Davis' plan to keep all his former slaves on the plantation
and, as they grew in intelligence and ability to care for themselves, to
make them its owners. To this end he sold the plantation to the man who
had been his overseer. This man, with his two sons, all of whom had
formerly been slaves on the plantation, continued for a number of years
to carry on the work of the plantation until, as the result of losses,
due to overflow, it became apparent they would not be able to pay the
heavy interest charges which the purchase of the place had entailed and
were thus forced to give up the experiment.
It is a mistake to assume that life for the slave on the plantation was
always one of unremitting labor. In a humble way the slaves had their
seasons of rejoicing and festivity. There were the usual weekly meetings
in the plantation churches, where they had sermons, sometimes by a white
minister, but more often by one of their own number. It was here that
those beautiful old plantation melodies sprang up, in which the slaves
poured out, in rude but picturesque language and in simple plaintive
melodies, what lay deepest and heaviest on their hearts.
Sometimes at night, around the fireside, they listened to those quaint
and homely stories which have been preserved in classic form in the
Tales of Uncle Remus.
"Hog-killing" was a sort of annual festival among the slaves, and the
occasional cornshuckings were always a joyous event in which both master
and servants, each in their separate ways, took part.
These cornshucking bees took place during the last of November or the
first of December, and were a sort of prelude to the festivities of the
Christmas season. After all the corn had been gathered it would be
piled up in the shape of a great mound. Then invitations would be sent
around by the master of one of the large plantations to the neighboring
plantations, inviting them and their slaves to be present on a certain
night. In response to these invitations as many as one or two hundred
men, women and children would come together.
After all were assembled around the pile of corn some one, who had
already gained a reputation as a leader in singing, would climb on top
of the mound and begin at once, in a clear loud voice, to sing. He sang
a song of the cornshucking season, making up the words very largely as
he went along. All the others gathered at the base of the mound and
joined of course in the chorus. The whole proceeding had a good deal of
the flavor of the campmeeting and some of the music was weird and wild.
One of the songs that used to be sung on occasions like this ran about
as follows:
Massa's niggers am slick and fat,
Oh! Oh! Oh!
Shine just like a new beaver hat,
Oh! Oh! Oh!