PLANTATION LIFE
When Hakluyt wrote in 1584 his _Discourse of Western Planting_, his theme
was the project of American colonization; and when a settlement was planted
at Jamestown, at Boston or at Providence as the case might be, it was
called, regardless of the type, a plantation. This usage of the word in the
sense of a colony ended only upon the rise of a new institution to which
the original name was applied. The colonies at large came then to be known
as provinces or dominions, while the sub-colonies, the privately
owned village estates which prevailed in the South, were alone called
plantations. In the Creole colonies, however, these were known as
_habitations_--dwelling places. This etymology of the name suggests the
nature of the thing--an isolated place where people in somewhat peculiar
groups settled and worked and had their being. The standard community
comprised a white household in the midst of several or many negro families.
The one was master, the many were slaves; the one was head, the many were
members; the one was teacher, the many were pupils.
The scheme of the buildings reflected the character of the group. The "big
house," as the darkies loved to call it, might be of any type from a double
log cabin to a colonnaded mansion of many handsome rooms, and its setting
might range from a bit of primeval forest to an elaborate formal garden.
Most commonly the house was commodious in a rambling way, with no pretense
to distinction without nor to luxury within. The two fairly constant
features were the hall running the full depth of the house, and the
verandah spanning the front. The former by day and the latter at evening
served in all temperate seasons as the receiving place for guests and the
gathering place for the household at all its leisure times. The house was
likely to have a quiet dignity of its own; but most of such beauty as the
homestead possessed was contributed by the canopy of live-oaks if on the
rice or sugar coasts, or of oaks, hickories or cedars, if in the uplands.
Flanking the main house in many cases were an office and a lodge,
containing between them the administrative headquarters, the schoolroom,
and the apartments for any bachelor overflow whether tutor, sons or
guests. Behind the house and at a distance of a rod or two for the sake of
isolating its noise and odors, was the kitchen. Near this, unless a spring
were available, stood the well with its two buckets dangling from the
pulley; and near this in turn the dairy and the group of pots and tubs
which constituted the open air laundry. Bounding the back yard there were
the smoke-house where bacon and hams were cured, the sweet potato pit, the
ice pit except in the southernmost latitudes where no ice of local origin
was to be had, the carriage house, the poultry house, the pigeon cote, and
the lodgings of the domestic servants. On plantations of small or medium
scale the cabins of the field hands generally stood at the border of the
master's own premises; but on great estates, particularly in the lowlands,
they were likely to be somewhat removed, with the overseer's house, the
smithy, and the stables, corn cribs and wagon sheds nearby. At other
convenient spots were the buildings for working up the crops--the tobacco
house, the threshing and pounding mills, the gin and press, or the sugar
house as the respective staples required. The climate conduced so strongly
to out of door life that as a rule each roof covered but a single unit of
residence, industry or storage.
The fields as well as the buildings commonly radiated from the planter's
house. Close at hand were the garden, the orchards and the horse lot; and
behind them the sweet potato field, the watermelon patch and the forage
plots of millet, sorghum and the like. Thence there stretched the fields
of the main crops in a more or less solid expanse according to the local
conditions. Where ditches or embankments were necessary, as for sugar and
rice fields, the high cost of reclamation promoted compactness; elsewhere
the prevailing cheapness of land promoted dispersion. Throughout the
uplands, accordingly, the area in crops was likely to be broken by wood
lots and long-term fallows. The scale of tillage might range from a few
score acres to a thousand or two; the expanse of unused land need have no
limit but those of the proprietor's purse and his speculative proclivity.
The scale of the orchards was in some degree a measure of the domesticity
prevailing. On the rice coast the unfavorable character of the soil and the
absenteeism of the planter's families in summer conspired to keep the fruit
trees few. In the sugar district oranges and figs were fairly plentiful.
But as to both quantity and variety in fruits the Piedmont was unequaled.
Figs, plums, apples, pears and quinces were abundant, but the peaches
excelled all the rest. The many varieties of these were in two main groups,
those of clear stones and soft, luscious flesh for eating raw, and those
of clinging stones and firm flesh for drying, preserving, and making pies.
From June to September every creature, hogs included, commonly had as many
peaches as he cared to eat; and in addition great quantities might be
carried to the stills. The abandoned fields, furthermore, contributed
dewberries, blackberries, wild strawberries and wild plums in summer, and
persimmons in autumn, when the forest also yielded its muscadines, fox
grapes, hickory nuts, walnuts, chestnuts and chinquapins, and along the
Gulf coast pecans.
The resources for edible game were likewise abundant, with squirrels,
opossums and wild turkeys, and even deer and bears in the woods, rabbits,
doves and quail in the fields, woodcock and snipe in the swamps and
marshes, and ducks and geese on the streams. Still further, the creeks and
rivers yielded fish to be taken with hook, net or trap, as well as terrapin
and turtles, and the coastal waters added shrimp, crabs and oysters. In
most localities it required little time for a household, slave or free, to
lay forest, field or stream under tribute.
The planter's own dietary, while mostly home grown, was elaborate. Beef and
mutton were infrequent because the pastures were poor; Irish potatoes were
used only when new, for they did not keep well in the Southern climate;
and wheaten loaves were seldom seen because hot breads were universally
preferred. The standard meats were chicken in its many guises, ham and
bacon. Wheat flour furnished relays of biscuit and waffles, while corn
yielded lye hominy, grits, muffins, batter cakes, spoon bread, hoe cake
and pone. The gardens provided in season lettuce, cucumbers, radishes and
beets, mustard greens and turnip greens, string beans, snap beans and
butter beans, asparagus and artichokes, Irish potatoes, squashes, onions,
carrots, turnips, okra, cabbages and collards. The fields added green corn
for boiling, roasting, stewing and frying, cowpeas and black-eyed peas,
pumpkins and sweet potatoes, which last were roasted, fried or candied
for variation. The people of the rice coast, furthermore, had a special
fondness for their own pearly staple; and in the sugar district _strop de
batterie_ was deservedly popular. The pickles, preserves and jellies were
in variety and quantity limited only by the almost boundless resources and
industry of the housewife and her kitchen corps. Several meats and breads
and relishes would crowd the table simultaneously, and, unless unexpected
guests swelled the company, less would be eaten during the meal than would
be taken away at the end, never to return. If ever tables had a habit of
groaning it was those of the planters. Frugality, indeed, was reckoned a
vice to be shunned, and somewhat justly so since the vegetables and eggs
were perishable, the bread and meat of little cost, and the surplus from
the table found sure disposal in the kitchen or the quarters. Lucky was the
man whose wife was the "big house" cook, for the cook carried a basket, and
the basket was full when she was homeward bound.
The fare of the field hands was, of course, far more simple. Hoecake and
bacon were its basis and often its whole content. But in summer fruit
and vegetables were frequent; there was occasional game and fish at all
seasons; and the first heavy frost of winter brought the festival of
hog-killing time. While the shoulders, sides, hams and lard were saved, all
other parts of the porkers were distributed for prompt consumption. Spare
ribs and backbone, jowl and feet, souse and sausage, liver and chitterlings
greased every mouth on the plantation; and the crackling-bread, made of
corn meal mixed with the crisp tidbits left from the trying of the lard,
carried fullness to repletion. Christmas and the summer lay-by brought
recreation, but the hog-killing brought fat satisfaction.[1]
[Footnote 1: This account of plantation homesteads and dietary is drawn
mainly from the writer's own observations in post-bellum times in which,
despite the shifting of industrial arrangements and the decrease of wealth,
these phases have remained apparent. Confirmation may be had in Philip
Fithian _Journal_ (Princeton, 1900); A. de Puy Van Buren, _Jottings of a
Year's Sojourn in the South_ (Battle Creek, Mich., 1859); Susan D. Smedes,
_Memorials of a Southern Planter_ (Baltimore, 1887); Mary B. Chestnutt, _A
Diary from Dixie_ (New York, 1905); and many other memoirs and traveller's
accounts.]
The warmth of the climate produced some distinctive customs. One was the
high seasoning of food to stimulate the appetite; another was the afternoon
siesta of summer; a third the wellnigh constant leaving of doors ajar even
in winter when the roaring logs in the chimney merely took the chill from
the draughts. Indeed a door was not often closed on the plantation except
those of the negro cabins, whose inmates were hostile to night air, and
those of the storerooms. As a rule, it was only in the locks of the latter
that keys were ever turned by day or night.
The lives of the whites and the blacks were partly segregate, partly
intertwined. If any special link were needed, the children supplied it.
The whites ones, hardly knowing their mothers from their mammies or their
uncles by blood from their "uncles" by courtesy, had the freedom of the
kitchen and the cabins, and the black ones were their playmates in the
shaded sandy yard the livelong day. Together they were regaled with
folklore in the quarters, with Bible and fairy stories in the "big house,"
with pastry in the kitchen, with grapes at the scuppernong arbor, with
melons at the spring house and with peaches in the orchard. The half-grown
boys were likewise almost as undiscriminating among themselves as the dogs
with which they chased rabbits by day and 'possums by night. Indeed, when
the fork in the road of life was reached, the white youths found something
to envy in the freedom of their fellows' feet from the cramping weight of
shoes and the freedom of their minds from the restraints of school. With
the approach of maturity came routine and responsibility for the whites,
routine alone for the generality of the blacks. Some of the males of each
race grew into ruffians, others into gentlemen in the literal sense, some
of the females into viragoes, others into gentlewomen; but most of
both races and sexes merely became plain, wholesome folk of a somewhat
distinctive plantation type.
In amusements and in religion the activities of the whites and blacks were
both mingled and separate. Fox hunts when occurring by day were as a rule
diversions only for the planters and their sons and guests, but when they
occurred by moonlight the chase was joined by the negroes on foot with
halloos which rivalled the music of the hounds. By night also the blacks,
with the whites occasionally joining in, sought the canny 'possum and the
embattled 'coon; in spare times by day they hied their curs after the
fleeing Brer Rabbit, or built and baited seductive traps for turkeys and
quail; and fishing was available both by day and by night. At the horse
races of the whites the jockeys and many of the spectators were negroes;
while from the cock fights and even the "crap" games of the blacks, white
men and boys were not always absent.
Festivities were somewhat more separate than sports, though by no means
wholly so. In the gayeties of Christmas the members of each race were
spectators of the dances and diversions of the other. Likewise marriage
merriment in the great house would have its echo in the quarters; and
sometimes marriages among the slaves were grouped so as to give occasion
for a general frolic. Thus Daniel R. Tucker in 1858 sent a general
invitation over the countryside in central Georgia to a sextuple wedding
among his slaves, with dinner and dancing to follow.[2] On the whole, the
fiddle, the banjo and the bones were not seldom in requisition.
[Footnote 2: _Federal Union_ (Milledgeville, Ga.), April 20, 1858.]
It was a matter of discomfort that in the evangelical churches dancing
and religion were held to be incompatible. At one time on Thomas Dabney's
plantation in Mississippi, for instance, the whole negro force fell captive
in a Baptist "revival" and forswore the double shuffle. "I done buss' my
fiddle an' my banjo, and done fling 'em away," the most music-loving
fellow on the place said to the preacher when asked for his religious
experiences.[3] Such a condition might be tolerable so long as it was
voluntary; but the planters were likely to take precautions against its
becoming coercive. James H. Hammond, for instance, penciled a memorandum
in his plantation manual: "Church members are privileged to dance on all
holyday occasions; and the class-leader or deacon who may report them shall
be reprimanded or punished at the discretion of the master."[4] The logic
with which sin and sanctity were often reconciled is illustrated in Irwin
Russell's remarkably faithful "Christmas in the Quarters." "Brudder Brown"
has advanced upon the crowded floor to "beg a blessin' on dis dance:"
[Footnote 3: S.D. Smedes. _Memorials of a Southern Planter_, pp. 161, 162.]
[Footnote 4: MS. among the Hammond papers in the Library of Congress.]
O Mashr! let dis gath'rin' fin' a blessin' in yo' sight!
Don't jedge us hard fur what we does--you knows it's Chrismus night;
An' all de balunce ob de yeah we does as right's we kin.
Ef dancin's wrong, O Mashr! let de time excuse de sin!
We labors in de vineya'd, wukin' hard and wukin' true;
Now, shorely you won't notus, ef we eats a grape or two,
An' takes a leetle holiday,--a leetle restin' spell,--
Bekase, nex' week we'll start in fresh, an' labor twicet as well.
Remember, Mashr,--min' dis, now,--de sinfulness ob sin
Is 'pendin' 'pon de sperrit what we goes an' does it in;
An' in a righchis frame ob min' we's gwine to dance an' sing,
A-feelin' like King David, when he cut de pigeon-wing.
It seems to me--indeed it do--I mebbe mout be wrong--
That people raly _ought_ to dance, when Chrismus comes along;
Des dance bekase dey's happy--like de birds hops in de trees,
De pine-top fiddle soundin' to de blowin' ob de breeze.
We has no ark to dance afore, like Isrul's prophet king;
We has no harp to soun' de chords, to holp us out to sing;
But 'cordin' to de gif's we has we does de bes' we knows,
An' folks don't 'spise de vi'let-flower bekase it ain't de rose.
You bless us, please, sah, eben ef we's doin' wrong tonight:
Kase den we'll need de blessin' more'n ef we's doin' right;
An' let de blessin' stay wid us, untel we comes to die,
An' goes to keep our Chrismus wid dem sheriffs in de sky!
Yes, tell dem preshis anjuls we's a-gwine to jine 'em soon:
Our voices we's a-trainin' fur to sing de glory tune;
We's ready when you wants us, an' it ain't no matter when--
O Mashr! call yo' chillen soon, an' take 'em home! Amen.[5]
[Footnote 5: Irwin Russell, _Poems_ (New York [1888]), pp. 5-7.]
The churches which had the greatest influence upon the negroes were those
which relied least upon ritual and most upon exhilaration. The Baptist and
Methodist were foremost, and the latter had the special advantage of the
chain of camp meetings which extended throughout the inland regions. At
each chosen spot the planters and farmers of the countryside would jointly
erect a great shed or "stand" in the midst of a grove, and would severally
build wooden shelters or "tents" in a great square surrounding it. When the
crops were laid by in August, the households would remove thither, their
wagons piled high with bedding, chairs and utensils to keep "open house"
with heavy-laden tables for all who might come to the meeting. With less
elaborate equipment the negroes also would camp in the neighborhood and
attend the same service as the whites, sitting generally in a section of
the stand set apart for them. The camp meeting, in short, was the chief
social and religious event of the year for all the Methodist whites and
blacks within reach of the ground and for such non-Methodists as cared
to attend. For some of the whites this occasion was highly festive, for
others, intensely religious; but for any negro it might easily be both at
once. Preachers in relays delivered sermons at brief intervals from
sunrise until after nightfall; and most of the sermons were followed by
exhortations for sinners to advance to the mourners' benches to receive
the more intimate and individual suasion of the clergy and their corps of
assisting brethren and sisters. The condition was highly hypnotic, and the
professions of conversion were often quite as ecstatic as the most fervid
ministrant could wish. The negroes were particularly welcome to the
preachers, for they were likely to give the promptest response to the
pulpit's challenge and set the frenzy going. A Georgia preacher, for
instance, in reporting from one of these camps in 1807, wrote: "The first
day of the meeting, we had a gentle and comfortable moving of the spirit of
the Lord among us; and at night it was much more powerful than before, and
the meeting was kept up all night without intermission. However, before
day the white people retired, and the meeting was continued by the black
people." It is easy to see who led the way to the mourners' bench. "Next
day," the preacher continued, "at ten o'clock the meeting was remarkably
lively, and many souls were deeply wrought upon; and at the close of the
sermon there was a general cry for mercy, and before night there were a
good many persons who professed to get converted. That night the meeting
continued all night, both by the white and black people, and many souls
were converted before day." The next day the stir was still more general.
Finally, "Friday was the greatest day of all. We had the Lord's Supper at
night, ... and such a solemn time I have seldom seen on the like occasion.
Three of the preachers fell helpless within the altar, and one lay a
considerable time before he came to himself. From that the work of
convictions and conversions spread, and a large number were converted
during the night, and there was no intermission until the break of day. At
that time many stout hearted sinners were conquered. On Saturday we had
preaching at the rising of the sun; and then with many tears we took leave
of each other."[6]
[Footnote 6: _Farmer's Gazette_ (Sparta, Ga.), Aug. 8, 1807, reprinted in
_Plantation and Frontier_, II, 285, 286.]
The tone of the Baptist "protracted meetings" was much like that of the
Methodist camps. In either case the rampant emotionalism, effective enough
among the whites, was with the negroes a perfect contagion. With some of
these the conversion brought lasting change; with others it provided a
garment of piety to be donned with "Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes" and
doffed as irksome on week days. With yet more it merely added to the joys
of life. The thrill of exaltation would be followed by pleasurable "sin,"
to give place to fresh conversion when the furor season recurred. The
rivalry of the Baptist and Methodist churches, each striving by similar
methods to excel the other, tempted many to become oscillating proselytes,
yielding to the allurements first of the one and then of the other, and on
each occasion holding the center of the stage as a brand snatched from the
burning, a lost sheep restored to the fold, a cause and participant of
rapture.
In these manifestations the negroes merely followed and enlarged upon the
example of some of the whites. The similarity of practices, however,
did not promote a permanent mingling of the two races in the same
congregations, for either would feel some restraint upon its rhapsody
imposed by the presence of the other. To relieve this there developed in
greater or less degree a separation of the races for purposes of worship,
white ministers preaching to the blacks from time to time in plantation
missions, and home talent among the negroes filling the intervals. While
some of the black exhorters were viewed with suspicion by the whites,
others were highly esteemed and unusually privileged. One of these at
Lexington, Kentucky, for example, was given the following pass duly signed
by his master: "Tom is my slave, and has permission to go to Louisville for
two or three weeks and return here after he has made his visit. Tom is a
preacher of the reformed Baptist church, and has always been a faithful
servant."[7] As a rule the greater the proportion of negroes in a district
or a church connection, the greater the segregation in worship. If the
whites were many and the negroes few, the latter would be given the gallery
or some other group of pews; but if the whites were few and the negroes
many, the two elements would probably worship in separate buildings. Even
in such case, however, it was very common for a parcel of black domestics
to flock with their masters rather than with their fellows.
[Footnote 7: Dated Aug. 6, 1856, and signed E. McCallister. MS. in the New
York Public Library.]
The general régime in the fairly typical state of South Carolina was
described in 1845 in a set of reports procured preliminary to a convention
on the state of religion among the negroes and the means of its betterment.
Some of these accounts were from the clergy of several denominations,
others from the laity; some treated of general conditions in the several
districts, others in detail of systems on the writers' own plantations. In
the latter group, N.W. Middleton, an Episcopalian of St. Andrew's parish,
wrote that he and his wife and sons were the only religious teachers of his
slaves, aside from the rector of the parish. He read the service and taught
the catechism to all every Sunday afternoon, and taught such as came
voluntarily to be instructed after family prayers on Wednesday nights. His
wife and sons taught the children "constantly during the week," chiefly in
the catechism. On the other hand R.F.W. Allston, a fellow Episcopalian of
Prince George, Winyaw, had on his plantation a place of worship open to all
denominations. A Methodist missionary preached there on alternate Sundays,
and the Baptists were less regularly cared for. Both of these sects,
furthermore, had prayer meetings, according to the rules of the plantation,
on two nights of each week. Thus while Middleton endeavored to school his
slaves in his own faith, Allston encouraged them to seek salvation by such
creed as they might choose.
An Episcopal clergyman in the same parish with Allston wrote that he held
fortnightly services among the negroes on ten plantations, and enlisted
some of the literate slaves as lay readers. His restriction of these to the
text of the prayer book, however, seems to have shorn them of power. The
bulk of the slaves flocked to the more spontaneous exercises elsewhere;
and the clergyman could find ground for satisfaction only in saying that
frequently as many as two hundred slaves attended services at one of the
parish churches in the district.
The Episcopal failure was the "evangelical" opportunity. Of the thirteen
thousand slaves in Allston's parish some 3200 were Methodists and 1500
Baptists, as compared with 300 Episcopalians. In St. Peter's parish a
Methodist reported that in a total of 6600 slaves, 1335 adhered to his
faith, about half of whom were in mixed congregations of whites and blacks
under the care of two circuit-riders, and the rest were in charge of two
missionaries who ministered to negroes alone. Every large plantation,
furthermore, had one or more "so-called negro preachers, but more properly
exhorters." In St. Helena parish the Baptists led with 2132 communicants;
the Methodists followed with 314 to whom a missionary holding services on
twenty plantations devoted the whole of his time; and the Episcopalians as
usual brought up the rear with fifty-two negro members of the church at
Beaufort and a solitary additional one in the chapel on St. Helena island.
Of the progress and effects of religion in the lowlands Allston and
Middleton thought well. The latter said, "In every respect I feel
encouraged to go on." The former wrote: "Of my own negroes and those in my
immediate neighborhood I may speak with confidence. They are attentive to
religious instruction and greatly improved in intelligence and morals, in
domestic relations, etc. Those who have grown up under religious training
are more intelligent and generally, though not always, more improved than
those who have received religious instruction as adults. Indeed the degree
of intelligence which as a class they are acquiring is worthy of deep
consideration." Thomas Fuller, the reporter from the Beaufort neighborhood,
however, was as much apprehensive as hopeful. While the negroes had greatly
improved in manners and appearance as a result of coming to worship in town
every Sunday, said he, the freedom which they were allowed for the purpose
was often misused in ways which led to demoralization. He strongly advised
the planters to keep the slaves at home and provide instruction there.
From the upland cotton belt a Presbyterian minister in the Chester district
wrote: "You are all aware, gentlemen, that the relation and intercourse
between the whites and the blacks in the up-country are very different from
what they are in the low-country. With us they are neither so numerous nor
kept so entirely separate, but constitute a part of our households, and are
daily either with their masters or some member of the white family. From
this circumstance they feel themselves more identified with their owners
than they can with you. I minister steadily to two different congregations.
More than one hundred blacks attend.... The gallery, or a quarter of the
house, is appropriated to them in all our churches, and they enjoy the
preached gospel in common with the whites." Finally, from the Greenville
district, on the upper edge of the Piedmont, where the Methodists and
Baptists were completely dominant among whites and blacks alike, it was
reported: "About one fourth of the members in the churches are negroes.
In the years 1832, '3 and '4 great numbers of negroes joined the churches
during a period of revival. Many, I am sorry to say, have since been
excommunicated. As the general zeal in religion declined, they backslid."
There were a few licensed negro preachers, this writer continued, who were
thought to do some good; but the general improvement in negro character, he
thought, was mainly due to the religious and moral training given by their
masters, and still more largely by their mistresses. From all quarters the
expression was common that the promotion of religion among the slaves was
not only the duty of masters but was to their interest as well in that it
elevated the morals of the workmen and improved the quality of the service
they rendered.[8]
[Footnote 8: _Proceedings of the Meeting in Charleston, S.C., May 13-15,
1845, on the Religious Instruction of the Negroes, together with the Report
of the Committee and the Address to the Public_ (Charleston, 1845). The
reports of the Association for the Religious Instruction of Negroes in
Liberty County, Georgia, printed annually for a dozen years or more in the
'thirties and 'forties, relate the career of a particularly interesting
missionary work in that county on the rice coast, under the charge of the
Reverend C.C. Jones. The tenth report in the series (1845) summarizes the
work of the first decade, and the twelfth (1847) surveys the conditions
then prevalent. In C.F. Deems ed., _Annals of Southern Methodism for 1856_
(Nashville, [1857]) the ninth chapter is made up of reports on the mission
activities of that church among the negroes in various quarters of the
South.]
In general, the less the cleavage of creed between master and man, the
better for both, since every factor conducing to solidarity of sentiment
was of advantage in promoting harmony and progress. When the planter went
to sit under his rector while the slave stayed at home to hear an exhorter,
just so much was lost in the sense of fellowship. It was particularly
unfortunate that on the rice coast the bulk of the blacks had no
co-religionists except among the non-slaveholding whites with whom they had
more conflict than community of economic and sentimental interest. On
the whole, however, in spite of the contrary suggestion of irresponsible
religious preachments and manifestations, the generality of the negroes
everywhere realized, like the whites, that virtue was to be acquired by
consistent self-control in the performance of duty rather man by the
alternation of spasmodic reforms and relapses.
Occasionally some hard-headed negro would resist the hypnotic suggestion
of his preacher, and even repudiate glorification on his death-bed. A
Louisiana physician recounts the final episode in the career of "Old Uncle
Caleb," who had long been a-dying. "Before his departure, Jeff, the negro
preacher of the place, gathered his sable flock of saints and sinners
around the bed. He read a chapter and prayed, after which they sang a
hymn.... Uncle Caleb lay motionless with closed eyes, and gave no sign.
Jeff approached and took his hand. 'Uncle Caleb,' said he earnestly, 'de
doctor says you are dying; and all de bredderin has come in for to see you
de last time. And now, Uncle Caleb, dey wants to hear from your own mouf de
precious words, dat you feels prepared to meet your God, and is ready and
willin' to go,' Old Caleb opened his eyes suddenly, and in a very peevish,
irritable tone, rebuffed the pious functionary in the following unexpected
manner: 'Jeff, don't talk your nonsense to me! You jest knows dat I an't
ready to go, nor willin' neder; and dat I an't prepared to meet nobody,'
Jeff expatiated largely not only on the mercy of God, but on the glories of
the heavenly kingdom, as a land flowing with milk and honey, etc. 'Dis ole
cabin suits me mon'sus well!' was the only reply he could elicit from the
old reprobate. And so he died."[9]
[Footnote 9: William H. Holcombe, "Sketches of Plantation Life," in the
_Knickerbocker Magazine_, LVII, 631 (June, 1861).]
The slaves not only had their own functionaries in mystic matters,
including a remnant of witchcraft, but in various temporal concerns also.
Foremen, chosen by masters with the necessary sanction of the slaves, had
industrial and police authority; nurses were minor despots in sick rooms
and plantation hospitals; many an Uncle Remus was an oracle in folklore;
and many an Aunt Dinah was arbitress of style in turbans and of elegancies
in general. Even in the practice of medicine a negro here and there gained
a sage's reputation. The governor of Virginia reported in 1729 that he had
"met with a negro, a very old man, who has performed many wonderful cures
of diseases. For the sake of his freedom he has revealed the medicine, a
concoction of roots and barks.... There is no room to doubt of its being
a certain remedy here, and of singular use among the negroes--it is well
worth the price (£60) of the negro's freedom, since it is now known how to
cure slaves without mercury."[10] And in colonial South Carolina a slave
named Caesar was particularly famed for his cure for poison, which was a
decoction of plantain, hoar-hound and golden rod roots compounded with rum
and lye, together with an application of tobacco leaves soaked in rum in
case of rattlesnake bite. In 1750 the legislature ordered his prescription
published for the benefit of the public, and the Charleston journal which
printed it found its copies exhausted by the demand.[11] An example of more
common episodes appears in a letter from William Dawson, a Potomac planter,
to Robert Carter of Nomoni Hall, asking that "Brother Tom," Carter's
coachman, be sent to see a sick child in his quarter. Dawson continued:
"The black people at this place hath more faith in him as a doctor than any
white doctor; and as I wrote you in a former letter I cannot expect you to
lose your man's time, etc., for nothing, but am quite willing to pay for
same."[12]
[Footnote 10: J.H. Russell, _The Free Negro in Virginia_ (Baltimore, 1913),
p. 53, note.]
[Footnote 11: _South Carolina Gazette_, Feb. 25, 1751.]
[Footnote 12: MS. in the Carter papers, Virginia Historical Society.]
Each plantation had a double head in the master and the mistress. The
latter, mother of a romping brood of her own and over-mother of the
pickaninny throng, was the chatelaine of the whole establishment. Working
with a never flagging constancy, she carried the indoor keys, directed the
household routine and the various domestic industries, served as head nurse
for the sick, and taught morals and religion by precept and example.
Her hours were long, her diversions few, her voice quiet, her influence
firm.[13] Her presence made the plantation a home; her absence would have
made it a factory. The master's concern was mainly with the able-bodied in
the routine of the crops. He laid the plans, guessed the weather, ordered
the work, and saw to its performance. He was out early and in late,
directing, teaching, encouraging, and on occasion punishing. Yet he found
time for going to town and for visits here and there, time for politics,
and time for sports. If his duty as he saw it was sometimes grim, and
his disappointments keen, hearty diversions were at hand to restore his
equanimity. His horn hung near and his hounds made quick response on
Reynard's trail, and his neighbors were ready to accept his invitations and
give theirs lavishly in return, whether to their houses or to their fields.
When their absences from home were long, as they might well be in the
public service, they were not unlikely upon return to meet such a reception
as Henry Laurens described: "I found nobody there but three of our old
domestics--Stepney, Exeter and big Hagar. These drew tears from me by their
humble and affectionate salutes. My knees were clasped, my hands kissed,
my very feet embraced, and nothing less than a very--I can't say fair, but
full--buss of my lips would satisfy the old man weeping and sobbing in my
face.... They ... held my hands, hung upon me; I could scarce get from
them. 'Ah,' said the old man, 'I never thought to see you again; now I am
happy; Ah, I never thought to see you again.'"[14]
[Footnote 13: Emily J. Putnam, _The Lady_ (New York, 1910), pp. 282-323.]
[Footnote 14: D.D. Wallace, _Life of Henry Laurens_, p. 436.]
Among the clearest views of plantation life extant are those of two
Northern tutors who wrote of their Southern sojourns. One was Philip
Fithian who went from Princeton in 1773 to teach the children of Colonel
Robert Carter of Nomoni Hall in the "Northern Neck" of Virginia, probably
the most aristocratic community of the whole South: the other was A. de Puy
Van Buren who left Battle Creek in the eighteen-fifties to seek health and
employment in Mississippi and found them both, and happiness too, amid the
freshly settled folk on the banks of the Yazoo River. Each of these made
jottings now and then of the work and play of the negroes, but both of them
were mainly impressed by the social régime in which they found themselves
among the whites. Fithian marveled at the evidences of wealth and the
stratification of society, but he reckoned that a well recommended
Princeton graduate, with no questions asked as to his family, fortune or
business, would be rated socially as on an equal footing with the owner
of a £10,000 estate, though this might be discounted one-half if he were
unfashionably ignorant of dancing, boxing, fencing, fiddling and cards.[15]
He was attracted by the buoyancy, the good breeding and the cordiality of
those whom he met, and particularly by the sound qualities of Colonel and
Mrs. Carter with whom he dwelt; but as a budding Presbyterian preacher he
was a little shocked at first by the easy-going conduct of the Episcopalian
planters on Sundays. The time at church, he wrote, falls into three
divisions: first, that before service, which is filled by the giving and
receiving of business letters, the reading of advertisements and the
discussion of crop prices and the lineage and qualities of favorite horses;
second, "in the church at service, prayrs read over in haste, a sermon
seldom under and never over twenty minutes, but always made up of sound
morality or deep, studied metaphysicks;"[16] third, "after service is over,
three quarters of an hour spent in strolling round the church among the
crowd, in which time you will be invited by several different gentlemen
home with them to dinner."
[Footnote 15: Philip V. Fithian, _Journal and Letters_ (Princeton, 1900),
p. 287.]
[Footnote 16: Fithian _Journal and Letters_, p. 296.]
Van Buren found the towns in the Yazoo Valley so small as barely to be
entitled to places on the map; he found the planters' houses to be commonly
mere log structures, as the farmers' houses about his own home in Michigan
had been twenty years before; and he found the roads so bad that the mule
teams could hardly draw their wagons nor the spans of horses their chariots
except in dry weather. But when on his horseback errands in search of a
position he learned to halloo from the roadway and was regularly met at
each gate with an extended hand and a friendly "How do you do, sir? Won't
you alight, come in, take a seat and sit awhile?"; when he was invariably
made a member of any circle gathered on the porch and refreshed with cool
water from the cocoanut dipper or with any other beverages in circulation;
when he was asked as a matter of course to share any meal in prospect and
to spend the night or day, he discovered charms even in the crudities of
the pegs for hanging saddles on the porch and the crevices between the logs
of the wall for the keeping of pipes and tobacco, books and newspapers.
Finally, when the planter whose house he had made headquarters for two
months declined to accept a penny in payment, Van Buren's heart overflowed.
The boys whom he then began to teach he found particularly apt in
historical studies, and their parents with whom he dwelt were thorough
gentlefolk.
Toward the end of his narrative, Van Buren expressed the thought that
Mississippi, the newly settled home of people from all the older Southern
states, exemplified the manners of all. He was therefore prompted to
generalize and interpret: "A Southern gentleman is composed of the same
material that a Northern gentleman is, only it is tempered by a Southern
clime and mode of life. And if in this temperament there is a little more
urbanity and chivalry, a little more politeness and devotion to the ladies,
a little more _suaviter in modo_, why it is theirs--be fair and acknowledge
it, and let them have it. He is from the mode of life he lives, especially
at home, more or less a cavalier; he invariably goes a-horseback. His boot
is always spurred, and his hand ensigned with the riding-whip. Aside from
this he is known by his bearing--his frankness and firmness." Furthermore
he is a man of eminent leisureliness, which Van Buren accounts for as
follows: "Nature is unloosed of her stays there; she is not crowded for
time; the word haste is not in her vocabulary. In none of the seasons is
she stinted to so short a space to perform her work as at the North. She
has leisure enough to bud and blossom--to produce and mature fruit, and do
all her work. While on the other hand in the North right the reverse is
true. Portions are taken off the fall and spring to lengthen out the
winter, making his reign nearly half the year. This crowds the work of
the whole year, you might say, into about half of it. This ... makes the
essential difference between a Northerner and a Southerner. They are
children of their respective climes; and this is why Southrons are so
indifferent about time; they have three months more of it in a year than we
have." [17]
[Footnote 17: A. de Puy Van Buren, _Jottings of a Year's Sojourn in the
South_, pp. 232-236.]
A key to Van Buren's enthusiasm is given by a passage in the diary of
the great English reporter, William H. Russell: "The more one sees of a
planter's life the greater is the conviction that its charms come from a
particular turn of mind, which is separated by a wide interval from modern
ideas in Europe. The planter is a denomadized Arab;--he has fixed himself
with horses and slaves in a fertile spot, where he guards his women with
Oriental care, exercises patriarchal sway, and is at once fierce, tender
and hospitable. The inner life of his household is exceedingly charming,
because one is astonished to find the graces and accomplishments of
womanhood displayed in a scene which has a certain sort of savage rudeness
about it after all, and where all kinds of incongruous accidents are
visible in the service of the table, in the furniture of the house, in
its decorations, menials, and surrounding scenery."[18] The Southerners
themselves took its incongruities much as a matter of course. The régime
was to their minds so clearly the best attainable under the circumstances
that its roughnesses chafed little. The plantations were homes to which,
as they were fond of singing, their hearts turned ever; and the negroes,
exasperating as they often were to visiting strangers, were an element
in the home itself. The problem of accommodation, which was the central
problem of the life, was on the whole happily solved.
[Footnote 18: William H. Russell, _My Diary North and South_ (Boston,
1863), p. 285.]
The separate integration of the slaves was no more than rudimentary. They
were always within the social mind and conscience of the whites, as the
whites in turn were within the mind and conscience of the blacks. The
adjustments and readjustments were mutually made, for although the masters
had by far the major power of control, the slaves themselves were by no
means devoid of influence. A sagacious employer has well said, after long
experience, "a negro understands a white man better than the white man
understands the negro."[19] This knowledge gave a power all its own. The
general régime was in fact shaped by mutual requirements, concessions
and understandings, producing reciprocal codes of conventional morality.
Masters of the standard type promoted Christianity and the customs of
marriage and parental care, and they instructed as much by example as
by precept; they gave occasional holidays, rewards and indulgences, and
permitted as large a degree of liberty as they thought the slaves could be
trusted not to abuse; they refrained from selling slaves except under
the stress of circumstances; they avoided cruel, vindictive and captious
punishments, and endeavored to inspire effort through affection rather
than through fear; and they were content with achieving quite moderate
industrial results. In short their despotism, so far as it might properly
be so called was benevolent in intent and on the whole beneficial in
effect.
[Footnote 19: Captain L.V. Cooley, _Address Before the Tulane Society of
Economics_ [New Orleans, 1911], p. 8.]
Some planters there were who inflicted severe punishments for disobedience
and particularly for the offense of running away; and the community
condoned and even sanctioned a certain degree of this. Otherwise no planter
would have printed such descriptions of scars and brands as were fairly
common in the newspaper advertisements offering rewards for the recapture
of absconders.[20] When severity went to an excess that was reckoned as
positive cruelty, however, the law might be invoked if white witnesses
could be had; or the white neighbors or the slaves themselves might apply
extra-legal retribution. The former were fain to be content with inflicting
social ostracism or with expelling the offender from the district;[21] the
latter sometimes went so far as to set fire to the oppressor's house or to
accomplish his death by poison, cudgel, knife or bullet.[22]
[Footnote 20: Examples are reprinted in _Plantation and Frontier_, II,
79-91.]
[Footnote 21: An instance is given in H.M. Henry, _Police Control of the
Slave in South Carolina_ (Emory, Va., [1914]), p. 75.]
[Footnote 22: For instances _see Plantation and Frontier_, II, 117-121.]
In the typical group there was occasion for terrorism on neither side. The
master was ruled by a sense of dignity, duty and moderation, and the
slaves by a moral code of their own. This embraced a somewhat obsequious
obedience, the avoidance of open indolence and vice, the attainment of
moderate skill in industry, and the cultivation of the master's good
will and affection. It winked at petty theft, loitering and other little
laxities, while it stressed good manners and a fine faithfulness in major
concerns. While the majority were notoriously easy-going, very many made
their master's interests thoroughly their own; and many of the masters had
perfect confidence in the loyalty of the bulk of their servitors. When on
the eve of secession Edmund Ruffin foretold[23] the fidelity which the
slaves actually showed when the war ensued, he merely voiced the faith of
the planter class.
[Footnote 23: _Debowfs Review_, XXX, 118-120 (January, 1861).]
In general the relations on both sides were felt to be based on pleasurable
responsibility. The masters occasionally expressed this in their letters.
William Allason, for example, who after a long career as a merchant at
Falmouth, Virginia, had retired to plantation life, declined his niece's
proposal in 1787 that he return to Scotland to spend his declining years.
In enumerating his reasons he concluded: "And there is another thing which
in your country you can have no trial of: that is, of selling faithful
slaves, which perhaps we have raised from their earliest breath. Even this,
however, some can do, as with horses, etc., but I must own that it is not
in my disposition."[24]
[Footnote 24: Letter dated Jan. 22, 1787, in the Allason MS. mercantile
books, Virginia State Library.]
Others were yet more expressive when they came to write their wills.
Thus[25] Howell Cobb of Houston County, Georgia, when framing his testament
in 1817 which made his body-servant "to be what he is really deserving, a
free man," and gave an annuity along with virtual freedom to another slave,
of an advanced age, said that the liberation of the rest of his slaves was
prevented by a belief that the care of generous and humane masters would
be much better for them than a state of freedom. Accordingly he bequeathed
these to his wife who he knew from her goodness of temper would treat them
with unflagging kindness. But should the widow remarry, thereby putting her
property under the control of a stranger, the slaves and the plantation
were at once to revert to the testator's brother who was recommended to
bequeath them in turn to his son Howell if he were deemed worthy of the
trust. "It is my most ardent desire that in whatsoever hands fortune
may place said negroes," the will enjoined, "that all the justice and
indulgence may be shown them that is consistent with a state of slavery. I
flatter myself with the hope that none of my relations or connections will
be so ungrateful to my memory as to treat or use them otherwise." Surely
upon the death of such a master the slaves might, with even more than usual
unction, raise their melodious refrain:
[Footnote 25: MS. copy in the possession of Mrs. A.S. Erwin, Athens,
Ga. The nephew mentioned in the will was Howell Cobb of Confederate
prominence.]
Down in de cawn fiel'
Hear dat mo'nful soun';
All de darkies am aweepin',
Massa's in de col', col' ground.