CHAPTER VIII.

MISSISSIPPI AND LOUISIANA.

_New Orleans._—The steamboat by which I made the passage along the

north shore of the Mexican Gulf to New Orleans, was New York built,

and owned by a New-Yorker; and the Northern usage of selling passage

tickets, to be returned on leaving the boat, was retained upon it. I

was sitting near a group of Texans and emigrating planters, when a

waiter passed along, crying the usual request, that passengers who

had not obtained tickets would call at the captain’s office for that

purpose. “What’s that? What’s that?” they shouted; “What did he mean?

What is it?” “Why, it’s a dun,” said one. “He is dunnin’ on us, sure,”

continued one and another; and some started from the seats, as if they

thought it insulting. “Well, it’s the first time I ever was dunned by

a nigger, I’ll swar,” said one. This seemed to place it in a humorous

aspect; and, after a hearty laugh, they resumed their discussion of

the advantages offered to emigrants in different parts of Texas, and

elsewhere.

There was a young man on the boat who had been a passenger with me on

the boat from Montgomery. He was bound for Texas; and while on board

the Fashion I had heard him saying that he had met with “a right smart

bad streak of luck” on his way, having lost a valuable negro.

“I thought you were going on with those men to Texas, the other day,”

said I.

“No,” he replied; “I left my sister in Mobile, when I went back after

my nigger, and when I came down again, I found that she had found an

old acquaintance there, and they had concluded to get married; so I

stayed to see the wedding.”

“Rather quick work.”

“Well, I reckon they’d both thought about it when they knew each other

before; but I didn’t know it, and it kind o’ took me by surprise. So my

other sister, she concluded Ann had done so well stopping in Mobile,

she’d stop and keep company with her a spell; and so I’ve got to go

’long alone. Makes me feel kind o’ lonesome—losing that nigger too.”

“Did you say that you went back after the nigger? I thought he died?”

“Well, you see I had brought him along as far as Mobile, and he got

away from me there, and slipped aboard a steamboat going back, and hid

himself. I found out that he was aboard of her pretty soon after she

got off, and I sent telegraphic despatches to several places along up

the river, to the captain, to put him in a jail, ashore, for me. I

know he got one of them at Cahawba, but he didn’t mind it till he got

to Montgomery. Well, the nigger didn’t have any attention paid to him.

They just put him in irons; likely enough he didn’t get much to eat,

or have anything to cover himself, and he took cold, and got sick—got

pneumonia—and when they got to Montgomery, they made him walk up to the

jail, and there wan’t no fire, and nothin’ to lie on, nor nothin’ for

him in the jail, and it made quick work with him. Before I could get

up there he was dead. I see an attorney here to Mobile, and he offered

to take the case, and prosecute the captain; and he says if he don’t

recover every red cent the man was worth, he won’t ask me for a fee. It

comes kinder hard on me. I bought the nigger up, counting I should make

a speculation on him; reckoned I’d take him to Texas if I couldn’t turn

him to good advantage at Mobile. As niggers is goin’ here now, I expect

’twas a dead loss of eight hundred dollars, right out of pocket.”

There were a large number of steerage passengers occupying the main

deck, forward of the shaft. Many of them were Irish, late immigrants,

but the large majority were slaves, going on to New Orleans to be sold,

or moving with their masters to Texas. There was a fiddle or two among

them, and they were very merry, dancing and singing. A few, however,

refused to join in the amusement, and looked very disconsolate. A large

proportion of them were boys and girls, under twenty years of age.

On the forecastle-deck there was a party of emigrants, moving

with waggons. There were three men, a father and his two sons, or

sons-in-law, with their families, including a dozen or more women and

children. They had two waggons, covered with calico and bed-ticks,

supported by hoops, in which they carried their furniture and stores,

and in which they also slept at night, the women in one, and the men

in the other. They had six horses, two mules, and two pair of cattle

with them. I asked the old man why he had taken his cattle along with

him, when he was going so far by sea, and found that he had informed

himself accurately of what it would cost him to hire or buy cattle at

Galveston; and that taking into account the probable delay he would

experience in looking for them there, he had calculated that he could

afford to pay the freight on them, to have them with him, to go on

at once into the country on his arrival, rather than to sell them at

Mobile.

“But,” said he, “there was one thing I didn’t cakulate on, and I

don’t understand it; the capting cherged me two dollars and a half

for ‘wherfage.’ I don’t know what that means, do you? I want to

know, because I don’t car’ to be imposed upon by nobody. I payed it

without sayin’ a word, ‘cause I never travelled on the water before;

next time I do, I shall be more sassy.” I asked where he was going.

“Didn’t know much about it,” he said, “but reckoned he could find a

place where there was a good range, and plenty of game. If ’twas as

good a range (pasture) as ’twas to Alabama when he first came there,

he’d be satisfied.” After he’d got his family safe through acclimating

this time, he reckoned he shouldn’t move again. He had moved about a

good deal in his life. There was his littlest boy, he said, looking

kindly at a poor, thin, blue-faced little child—he reckoned they’d be

apt to _leave_ him; he had got _tropsical_, and was of mighty weak

constitution, nat’rally; ’twouldn’t take much to carry him off, and,

of course, a family must be exposed a good deal, moving so this time

of year. They should try to find some heavy timbered land—good land,

and go to clearing; didn’t calculate to make any crops the first

year—didn’t calculate on it, though perhaps they might if they had good

luck. They had come from an eastern county of Alabama. Had sold out his

farm for two dollars an acre; best land in the district was worth four;

land was naturally kind of thin, and now ’twas pretty much all worn

out there. He had moved first from North Carolina, with his father.

They never made anything to sell but cotton; made corn for their own

use. Never had any negroes; reckoned he’d done about as well as if he

had had them; reckoned a little better on the whole. No, he should not

work negroes in Texas. “Niggers is so kerless, and want so much lookin’

arter; they is so monstrous lazy; they won’t do no work, you know, less

you are clus to ’em all the time, and I don’t feel like it. I couldn’t,

at my time of life, begin a-using the lash; and you know they do have

to take that, all on ’em—and a heap on’t, sometimes.”

“I don’t know much about it; they don’t have slaves where I live.”

“Then you come from a Free State; well, they’ve talked some of makin’

Alabamy a Free State.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“O, yes, there was a good deal of talk one time, as if they was goin’

to do it right off. O, yes; there was two or three of the States this

way, one time, come pretty nigh freein’ the niggers—lettin’ ’em all go

free.”

“And what do you think of it?”

“Well, I’ll tell you what I think on it; I’d like it if we could get

rid on ’em to yonst. I wouldn’t like to hev ’em freed, if they was

gwine to hang ‘round. They ought to get some country, and put ’em war

they could be by themselves. It wouldn’t do no good to free ’em, and

let ’em hang round, because they is so monstrous lazy; if they hadn’t

got nobody to take keer on ’em, you see they wouldn’t do nothin’ but

juss nat’rally laze round, and steal, and pilfer, and no man couldn’t

live, you see, war they was—if they was free, no man couldn’t live. And

then, I’ve two objections; that’s one on ’em—no man couldn’t live—and

this ere’s the other: Now suppose they was free, you see they’d all

think themselves just as good as we; of course they would, if they

was free. Now, just suppose you had a family of children: how would

you like to hev a niggar feelin’ just as good as a white man? how’d

you like to hev a niggar steppin’ up to your darter? Of course you

wouldn’t; and that’s the reason I wouldn’t like to hev ’em free; but

I tell you, I don’t think it’s right to hev ’em slaves so; that’s the

fac—taant right to keep ’em as they is.”

* * * * *

I was awakened, in the morning, by the loud ringing of a hand-bell;

and, turning out of my berth, dressed by dim lamp-light. The waiters

were serving coffee and collecting baggage; and, upon stepping out of

the cabin, I found that the boat was made fast to a long wooden jetty,

and the passengers were going ashore. A passage-ticket for New Orleans

was handed me, as I crossed the gang-plank. There was a rail-track and

a train of cars upon the wharf, but no locomotive; and I got my baggage

checked, and walked on toward the shore.

It was early daylight—a fog rested on the water, and only the nearest

point could be discerned. There were many small buildings near the

jetty, erected on piles over the water—bathing-houses, bowling-alleys,

and billiard-rooms, with other indications of a place of holiday

resort—and, on reaching the shore, I found a slumbering village.

The first house from the wharf had a garden about it, with complex

alleys, and tables, and arbours, and rustic seats, and cut shrubs, and

shells, and statues, and vases, and a lamp was feebly burning in a

large lantern over the entrance gate. I was thinking how like it was

to a rural restaurant in France or Germany, when a locomotive backed,

screaming hoarsely, down the jetty; and I returned to get my seat.

Off we puffed, past the restaurant, into the village—the name of which

I did not inquire, everybody near me seemed so cold and cross,—through

the little village of white houses—whatever it was—and away into a

dense, gray cypress forest. For three or four rods, each side of the

track, the trees had all been felled and removed, leaving a dreary

strip of swamp, covered with stumps. This was bounded and intersected

by broad ditches, or narrow and shallow canals, with a great number of

very small punts in them. So it continued, for two or three miles; then

the ground became dryer, there was an abrupt termination of the gray

wood; the fog was lifting and drifting off, in ragged, rosy clouds,

disclosing a flat country, skirted still, and finally bounded, in the

background, with the swamp-forest. A few low houses, one story high,

all having verandahs before them, were scattered thinly over it.

At length, a broad road struck in by the side of the track; the houses

became more frequent; soon forming a village street, with smoke

ascending from breakfast fires; windows and doors opening, maids

sweeping steps, bakers’ waggons passing, and broad streets, little

built upon, breaking off at right angles.

At the corners of these streets, were high poles, connected at the

top by a rope, and furnished with blocks and halyards, by which great

square lanterns were slung over the middle of the carriage-way. I

thought again of France, (“_à la lanterne!_”) and turning to one of my

cold and cross companions—a man wrapped in a loose coat, with a cowl

over his head—I asked the name of the village, for my geography was at

fault. I had expected to be landed at New Orleans by the boat, and had

not been informed of the railroad arrangement, and had no idea in what

part of Louisiana we might be. “Note Anglische, sare,” was the gruff

reply.

There was a sign, “_Café du Faubourg_,” and, putting my head out of the

window, I saw that we must have arrived at New Orleans. We reached the

terminus, which was surrounded with _fiacres_, in the style of Paris.

“To the Hotel St. Charles,” I said to a driver, confused with the loud

French and quiet English of the crowd about me. “_Oui_, yer ‘onor,”

was the reply of my Irish-born fellow-citizen: another passenger was

got, and away we rattled through narrow dirty streets, among grimy old

stuccoed walls; high arched windows and doors, balconies and entresols,

and French noises and French smells, French signs, ten to one of

English, but with funny polygomatic arrangements, sometimes, from which

less influential families were not excluded.

The other fare to whom I had not ventured to speak was set down at

a _salle pour la vente des_ somethings, and soon after the _fiacre_

turned out upon a broad place, covered with bales of cotton, and casks

of sugar, and weighing scales, and disclosing an astonishing number of

steamboats, lying all close together in a line, the ends of which were

lost in the mist, which still hung upon the river.

Now the signs became English, and the new brick buildings American. We

turned into a broad street, in which shutters were being taken from

great glass store-fronts, and clerks were exercising their ingenuity

in the display of muslin, and silks, and shawls. In the middle of the

broad street there was an open space of waste ground, looking as if

the corporation had not been able to pave the whole of it at once, and

had left this interval to be attended to when the treasury was better

filled. Crossing through a gap in this waste, we entered a narrow

street of high buildings, French, Spanish, and English signs, the

latter predominating; and at the second block, I was landed before the

great Grecian portico of the stupendous, tasteless, ill-contrived, and

inconvenient St. Charles Hotel.

After a bath and breakfast, I returned, with great interest, to

wander in the old French town, the characteristics of which I have

sufficiently indicated. Among the houses, one occasionally sees a relic

of ancient Spanish builders, while all the newer edifices have the

characteristics of the dollar-pursuing Yankees.

I was delighted when I reached the old Place d’Armes, now a public

garden, bright with the orange and lemon trees, and roses, and myrtles,

and laurels, and jessamines of the south of France. Fronting upon it is

the ancient Hotel de Ville, still the city court-house, a quaint old

French structure, with scaly and vermiculated surface, and deep-worn

door-sills, and smooth-rubbed corners; the most picturesque and

historic-looking public building, except the highly preserved, little

old court-house at Newport, that I can now think of in the United

States.

Adjoining it is an old Spanish cathedral, damaged by paint, and late

alterations and repairs, but still a fine thing in our desert of the

reverend in architecture. Enough, that while it is not new, it is not

shabby, and is not tricked out with much frippery,[33] gingerbread and

confectionery work. The door is open; coaches and crippled beggars are

near it. A priest, with a face the expression of which first makes

one think of an ape and then of an owl, is coming out. If he were not

otherwise to be heartily welcomed to fresh air and sunlight, he should

be so, for the sake of the Sister of Charity who is following him,

probably to some death-bed, with a corpse-like face herself, haggard

but composed, pensive and absorbed, and with the eyes of a broken

heart. I think that I may yet meet them looking down compassionately

and soothingly, in some far distant pestilent or war-hospital. In lieu

of holy-water, then, here is money for the poor-box, though the devil

share it with good angels.

Dark shadows, and dusky light, and deep, subdued, low organ strains

pervade the interior; and, on the bare floor, here are the kneeling

women—“good” and “bad” women—and, ah! yes, white and black women, bowed

in equality before their common Father. “Ridiculously absurd idea,” say

democratic Governors Mc Duffie and Hammond; “Self-evident,” said our

ancestors, and so must say the voice of conscience, in all free, humble

hearts.

In the crowded market-place, there were not only the pure old Indian

Americans, and the Spanish, French, English, Celtic, and African, but

nearly all possible mixed varieties of these, and no doubt of some

other breeds of mankind.

The various grades of the coloured people are designated by the French

as follows, according to the greater or less predominance of negro

blood:—

Sacatra griffe and negress.

Griffe negro and mulatto.

Marabon mulatto and griffe.

Mulatto white and negro.

Quarteron white and mulatto.

Metif white and quarteron.

Meamelouc white and metif.

Quarteron white and meamelouc.

Sang-mele white and quarteron.

And all these, with the sub-varieties of them, French, Spanish,

English, and Indian, and the sub-sub-varieties, such as

Anglo-Indian-mulatto, I believe experts pretend to be able to

distinguish. Whether distinguishable or not, it is certain they all

exist in New Orleans.

They say that the cross of the French and Spanish with the African

produces a finer and a healthier result than that of the more Northern

European races. Certainly, the French quadroons are very handsome and

healthy in appearance; and I should not be surprised if really thorough

and sufficient scientific observation should show them to be—contrary

to the common assertion—more vigorous than either of the parent races.

Some of the coloured women spoke French, Spanish, and English, as

their customers demanded.[34]

Three taverns, bearing the sign of “The Pig and Whistle,” indicated the

recent English, a cabaret to the Universal Republic, with a red flag,

the French, and the Gasthaus zum Rheinplatz, the Teutonic contributions

to the strength of our nation. A policeman, with the richest Irish

brogue, directed me back to the St. Charles.

In front of a large New York clothing store, twenty-two negroes were

standing in a row. Each wore a blue suit, and a black hat, and each

held a bundle of additional clothing, and a pair of shoes, in his

hands. They were all, but one, who was probably a driver having charge

of them, young men, not over twenty-five, and the majority, I should

think, between eighteen and twenty-two years of age. Their owner

was probably in the clothing store, settling for the outfit he had

purchased for them, and they were waiting to be led to the steamboat,

which should convey them to his plantation. They were silent and sober,

like a file of soldiers standing at ease; and, perhaps, were gratified

by the admiration their fine manly figures and uniform dress obtained

from the passers by.

“Well, now, that ar’s the likeliest lot of niggers I ever see,” said

one, to me. “Some feller’s bin roun’, and just made his pick out o’ all

the jails[35] in Orleens. Must ha’ cost him a heap o’ rocks. I don’t

reckon thar’s a nigger in that crowd that wouldn’t fetch twelve hundred

dollars, at a vandue. Twenty thousand dollars wouldn’ be no banter for

’em. Dam’d if they aint just the best gang o’ cotton-hands ever I see.

Give me half on ’em, and I’d sign off—wouldn’ ask nothing more.”

Louisiana or Texas, thought I, pays Virginia twenty odd thousand

dollars for that lot of bone and muscle. Virginia’s interest in

continuing the business may be imagined, especially if, in their

place, could come free labourers, to help her people at the work she

needs to have done; but where is the advantage of it to Louisiana,

and especially to Texas? Yonder is a steamboat load of the same

material—bone and muscle—which, at the same sort of valuation, is worth

two hundred and odd thousand dollars; and off it goes, past Texas,

through Louisiana—far away yet, up the river, and Wisconsin or Iowa

will get it, two hundred thousand dollars’ worth, to say nothing of the

thalers and silver groschen, in those strong chests—all for nothing.

In ten years’ time, how many mills, and bridges, and school-houses, and

miles of railroad, will the Germans have built? And how much cloth and

fish will they want from Massachusetts, iron from Pennsylvania, and tin

from Banca, hemp from Russia, tea from China, and coffee from Brazil,

fruit from Spain, wine from Ohio, and oil and gold from the Pacific,

silk from France, sugar from Louisiana, cotton from Texas, and rags

from Italy, lead from Illinois, notions from Connecticut, and machines

from New Jersey, and intelligence from everywhere?

And how much of all these things will the best two hundred Virginians

that Louisiana can buy, at any price, demand of commerce, in ten years?

A mechanic, English by birth, who had lived in New Orleans for

several years, always going up the river in the summer, to escape

the danger of fever in the city, told me that he could lay up money

much more rapidly than in New York. The expenses of living were not

necessarily greater than in New York. If a man kept house, and provided

for himself, he could live much cheaper than at boarding-houses. Many

unmarried mechanics, therefore, lived with coloured mistresses, who

were commonly vile and dishonest. He was at a boarding-house, where he

paid four dollars a week. In New York he had paid three dollars, but

the board was not as good as in New Orleans. “The reason,” said he,

“that people say it costs so much more to live here than in New York

is, that what they think treats in New York, they consider necessaries

here. Everybody lives freer, and spends their money more willingly

here.” When he first came to New Orleans, a New England mechanic came

with him. He supposed him to have been previously a man of sober

habits; but almost immediately after he got to New Orleans, he got

into bad ways, and in a few months he was so often drunk, and brought

so much scandal on their boarding-house, that he was turned out of it.

Soon after this, he called on him, and borrowed two dollars. He said he

could not live in New Orleans, it was too expensive, and he was going

to Texas. This was several years before, and he had not heard from him

since. And this he said was a very common course with New England boys,

who had been “too carefully brought up at home,” when they came to New

Orleans. The master mechanics, who bought up slaves, and took contracts

for work, he said, made more money than any others. They did so because

they did very poor work—poorer than white mechanics could generally be

got to do. But nearly all work was done in New Orleans more hastily

and carelessly than in New York, though he thought it was bad enough

there. The slave-holding bosses could get no white men to work with

their slaves, except Irishmen or Germans—no man who had any regard for

his position among his fellow-craftsmen would ever let himself be seen

working with a negro. He said I could see any day in Canal Street, “a

most revolting sight”—Irishmen waiting on negro masons. He had seen,

one morning as he was going to his work, a negro carrying some mortar,

when another negro hailed him with a loud laugh: “Hallo! you is turned

Irishman, is ‘ou?” White working men were rapidly displacing the slaves

in all sorts of work, and he hoped and believed it would not be many

years before every negro would be driven out of the town. He thought

acclimated white men could do more hard work than negroes, even in the

hottest weather, if they were temperate, and avoided too stimulating

food. That, he said, was the general opinion among those of them who

stayed over summer. Those who drank much whisky and cordials, and kept

up old habits of eating, just as if they were in England, were the ones

who complained most of the climate, and who thought white men were not

made to work in it. He had stayed as late as July, and returned in

September, and he never saw the day in which he could not do as much

work as he did in London.

A New-Yorker, whom I questioned about this, said: “I have worked

through the very hottest weather, steadily, day after day, and done

more work than any three niggers in the State, and been no worse for

it. A man has only to take some care of himself.”

Going to Lafayette, on the top of an omnibus, I heard an Irishman,

somewhat over-stimulated, as Irishmen are apt to be, loudly declare

himself an abolitionist: a companion endeavoured in vain to stop him,

or make him recant, and finally declared he would not ride any further

with him if he could not be more discreet.

The _Morehouse_ (Louisiana) _Advocate_, in an article abusive of

foreigners, thus describes what, if foreign born working men were

not generally so ignorant and easily imposed upon as they are, would

undoubtedly be (although they certainly have not yet generally been)

their sentiments with regard to Slavery:

“The great mass of foreigners who come to our shores are

labourers, and consequently come in competition with slave labour.

It is to their interest to abolish Slavery; and we know full

well the disposition of man to promote all things which advance

his own interests. These men come from nations where Slavery is

not allowed, and they drink in abolition sentiments from their

mothers’ breasts; they (all the white race) entertain an utter

abhorrence of being put on a level with blacks, whether in the

field or in the workshop. Could Slavery be abolished, there would

be a greater demand for labourers, and the prices of labour must

be greatly enhanced. These may be termed the internal evidences of

the abolitionism of foreigners.

“But we may find near home facts to corroborate these ’internal’

evidences: It is well known that there exists a great antipathy

among the draymen and rivermen of New Orleans (who are almost to a

man foreigners) to the participation of slaves in these branches

of industry.”

It is obvious that free men have very much gained the field of

labour in New Orleans to themselves. The majority of the cartmen,

hackney-coach men, porters, railroad hands, public waiters, and common

labourers, as well as of skilled mechanics, appear to be white men; and

of the negroes employed in those avocations a considerable proportion

are free.

This is the case here more than in any other town in the South,

although the climate is torrid, and inconvenient or dangerous to

strangers; because New Orleans is more extensively engaged in commerce

than they are, and because there is, by the passing and sojourning

immigration from Europe, constantly in the city a sufficient number of

free labourers to sustain, by competition and association with each

other, the habits of free-labour communities. It is plainly perceptible

that the white working men in New Orleans have more business-like

manners, and more assured self-respect, than those of smaller towns.

They are even not without some _esprit du corps_.

As Commerce, or any high form of industry requires intelligence

in its labourers, slaves can never be brought together in dense

communities, but their intelligence will increase to a degree dangerous

to those who enjoy the benefit of their labour. The slave must be

kept dependent, day by day, upon his master for his daily bread, or

he will find, and will declare his independence, in all respects, of

him. This condition disqualifies the slave for any but the simplest

and rudest forms of labour; and every attempt to bring his labour into

competition with free labour can only be successful at the hazard of

insurrection. Hundreds of slaves in New Orleans must be constantly

reflecting and saying to one another, “I am as capable of taking care

of myself as this Irish hod-carrier, or this German market-gardener;

why can’t I have the enjoyment of my labour as well as they? I am as

capable of taking care of my own family as much as they of theirs;

why should I be subject to have them taken from me by those other men

who call themselves our owners? Our children have as much brains as

the children of these white neighbours of ours, who not long ago were

cooks and waiters at the hotels; why should they be spurned from the

school-rooms? I helped to build the school-house, and have not been

paid for it. One thing I know, if I can’t have my rights, I can have my

pleasures; and if they won’t give me wages I can take them.”

That this influence of association in labour with free-men cannot fail

to be appreciated by intelligent observers, will be evident from the

following paragraph from the _New Orleans Crescent_, although it was

probably written to show only the amusing and picturesque aspect of the

slave community:—

“GUINEA-LIKE.—Passing along Baronne street, between Perdido

and Poydras streets, any Sunday afternoon, the white passer-by

might easily suppose himself in Guinea, Caffraria, or any other

thickly-peopled region in the land of Ham. Where the darkies all

come from, what they do there, or where they go to, constitute

a problem somewhat beyond our algebra. It seems to be a sort of

nigger exchange. We know there are in that vicinity a coloured

church, coloured ice-cream saloon, coloured restaurant, coloured

coffee-houses, and a coloured barber-shop, which, we have heard

say, has a back communication with one of the groggeries, for

the benefit of slaves; but as the police haven’t found it out

yet, we suppose it ain’t so. However, if the ebony dandies who

attend Sunday evening ‘change, would keep within their various

retreats, or leave a path about three feet wide on the side-walk,

for the free passage of people who are so unlucky as to be white,

we wouldn’t complain; but to have to elbow one’s way through a

crowd of woolly-heads on such a day as yesterday, their natural

muskiness made more villanous by the fumes of whisky, is too much

for delicate olfactories like ours. A fight, last evening, between

two white men at one of the groggeries, afforded much edification

to the darkies standing around, and seemed to confirm them in

their opinion, that white folks, after all, ain’t much.”

Similar complaints to the following, which I take from the _New

Orleans Crescent_, I have heard, or seen in the journals, at Richmond,

Savannah, Louisville, and most other large manufacturing, or commercial

towns of the South.

“PASSES TO NEGROES.—Something must be done to regulate and

prescribe the manner in which passes shall be given to slaves.

This is a matter that should no longer be shirked or avoided.

The Common Council should act promptly. The slave population of

this city is already demoralized to a deplorable extent, all

owing to the indiscriminate licence and indulgence extended them

by masters, mistresses, and guardians, and to the practice of

_forging passes_, which has now become a regular business in New

Orleans. The greater portion of the evil flows from forged passes.

As things now stand, any negro can obtain a pass for four bits

or a dollar, from miserable wretches who obtain a living by such

infamous practices. The consequence is that hundreds spend their

nights drinking, carousing, gambling, and contracting the worst of

habits, which not only make them _useless to their owners_, but

dangerous pests to society. We know of many negroes, completely

ruined, morally and physically, by such causes. The inherent vice

in the negro character always comes out when unrestrained, and

there is no degradation too low for him to descend.

“Well, for the remedy to cure this crying evil. Prosecuting the

forgers is out of the question; for where one conviction could be

obtained, thousands of fraudulent passes would be written. _Slave

evidence weighs nothing against white forgers and scoundrels._

Hence the necessity of adopting some other mode of prevention.

It has been suggested to us, that if the Council would adopt a

form for passes, different each month, to be obtained by masters

from the Chief of Police, exclusively, that a great deal of good

would be at once accomplished. We have no doubt of it. Further,

we believe that all owners and guardians would cheerfully submit

to the inconvenience in order to obtain so desirable an end. We

trust the Common Council will pay some little attention to these

suggestions.”

How many men, accustomed to the close calculations necessary to

successful enterprises, can listen to these suggestions, without asking

themselves whether a system, that requires to be sustained by such

inconvenient defences, had not better be thrown up altogether?

First and last, I spent some weeks in New Orleans and its vicinity. I

doubt if there is a city in the world, where the resident population

has been so divided in its origin, or where there is such a variety in

the tastes, habits, manners, and moral codes of the citizens. Although

this injures civic enterprise—which the peculiar situation of the city

greatly demands to be directed to means of cleanliness, convenience,

comfort, and health—it also gives a greater scope to the working

of individual enterprise, taste, genius, and conscience; so that

nowhere are the higher qualities of man—as displayed in generosity,

hospitality, benevolence, and courage—better developed, or the lower

qualities, likening him to a beast, less interfered with, by law or the

action of public opinion.

There is one, among the multitudinous classifications of society in

New Orleans, which is a very peculiar and characteristic result of

the prejudices, vices, and customs of the various elements of colour,

class, and nation, which have been there brought together.

I refer to a class composed of the illegitimate offspring of white

men and coloured women (mulattoes or quadroons), who, from habits of

early life, the advantages of education, and the use of wealth, are

too much superior to the negroes, in general, to associate with them,

and are not allowed by law, or the popular prejudice, to marry white

people. The girls are frequently sent to Paris to be educated, and

are very accomplished. They are generally pretty, often handsome. I

have rarely, if ever, met more beautiful women than one or two whom

I saw by chance, in the streets. They are better formed, and have a

more graceful and elegant carriage than Americans in general, while

they seem to have commonly inherited or acquired much of the taste and

skill, in the selection and arrangement, and the way of wearing dresses

and ornaments, that is the especial distinction of the women of Paris.

Their beauty and attractiveness being their fortune, they cultivate and

cherish with diligence every charm or accomplishment they are possessed

of.

Of course, men are attracted by them, associate with them, are

captivated, and become attached to them, and, not being able to marry

them legally, and with the usual forms and securities for constancy,

make such arrangements “as can be agreed upon.” When a man makes a

declaration of love to a girl of this class, she will admit or deny,

as the case may be, her happiness in receiving it; but, supposing she

is favourably disposed, she will usually refer the applicant to her

mother. The mother inquires, like the “Countess of Kew,” into the

circumstances of the suitor; ascertains whether he is able to maintain

a family, and, if satisfied with him, in these and other respects,

requires from him security that he will support her daughter in a style

suitable to the habits in which she has been bred, and that, if he

should ever leave her, he will give her a certain sum for her future

support, and a certain additional sum for each of the children she

shall then have.

The wealth, thus secured, will, of course, vary—as in society with

higher assumptions of morality—with the value of the lady in the

market; that is, with her attractiveness, and the number and value

of other suitors she may have, or may reasonably expect. Of course,

I do not mean that love has nothing at all to do with it; but love

is sedulously restrained, and held firmly in hand, until the road of

competency is seen to be clear, with less humbug than our English

custom requires about it. Everything being satisfactorily arranged, a

tenement in a certain quarter of the town is usually taken, and the

couple move into it and go to housekeeping—living as if they were

married. The woman is not, of course, to be wholly deprived of the

society of others—her former acquaintances are continued, and she

sustains her relations as daughter, sister, and friend. Of course, too,

her husband (she calls him so) will be likely to continue, also, more

or less in, and form a part of, this kind of society. There are parties

and balls—_bals masqués_—and all the movements and customs of other

fashionable society, which they can enjoy in it, if they wish.[36] The

women of this sort are represented to be exceedingly affectionate in

disposition, and constant beyond reproach.

During all the time a man sustains this relation, he will commonly

be moving, also, in reputable society on the other side of the town;

not improbably, eventually he marries, and has a family establishment

elsewhere. Before doing this, he may separate from his _placée_ (so

she is termed). If so, he pays her according to agreement, and as much

more, perhaps, as his affection for her, or his sense of the cruelty

of the proceeding, may lead him to; and she has the world before her

again, in the position of a widow. Many men continue for a long time,

to support both establishments—particularly if their legal marriage

is one _de convenance_. But many others form so strong attachments,

that the relation is never discontinued, but becomes, indeed, that of

marriage, except that it is not legalized or solemnized. These men

leave their estate, at death, to their children, to whom they may have

previously given every advantage of education they could command. What

becomes of the boys, I am not informed; the girls, sometimes, are

removed to other countries, where their colour does not prevent their

living reputable lives; but, of course, mainly continue in the same

society, and are fated to a life similar to that of their mothers.

I have described this custom as it was described to me; I need hardly

say, in only its best aspects. The crime and heart-breaking sorrow that

must frequently result from it, must be evident to every reflective

reader.

A gentleman, of New England education, gave me the following account

of his acquaintance with the quadroon society. On first coming to

New Orleans, he was drawn into the social circles usually frequented

by New England people, and some time afterwards was introduced by a

friend to a quadroon family, in which there were three pretty and

accomplished young women. They were intelligent and well informed;

their musical taste was especially well cultivated; they were well

read in the literature of the day, and their conversation upon it was

characterized by good sense and refined discrimination. He never saw

any indication of a want of purity of character or delicacy of feeling.

He was much attracted by them, and for some time visited them very

frequently. Having then discontinued his intimacy, at length one of

the girls asked him why he did not come to see them as often as he had

formerly done. He frankly replied, that he had found their society so

fascinating, that he had thought it best to restrict himself in the

enjoyment of it, lest it should become necessary to his happiness;

and out of regard to his general plans of life, and the feelings of

his friends, he could not permit himself to indulge the purpose to be

united to one of them, according to the usual custom with their class.

The young woman was evidently much pained, but not at all offended, and

immediately acknowledged and commended the propriety and good sense of

his resolution.

One reason which leads this way of living to be frequently adopted

by unmarried men, who come to New Orleans to carry on business, is,

that it is much cheaper than living at hotels and boarding-houses. As

no young man ordinarily dare think of marrying, until he has made a

fortune to support the extravagant style of housekeeping, and gratify

the expensive tastes of young women, as fashion is now educating them,

many are obliged to make up their minds never to marry. Such a one

undertook to show me that it was cheaper for him to _placer_ than to

live in any other way which could be expected of him in New Orleans.

He hired, at a low rent, two apartments in the older part of the town;

his _placée_ did not, except occasionally, require a servant; she did

the marketing, and performed all the ordinary duties of housekeeping

herself; she took care of his clothes, and in every way was economical

and saving in her habits; it being her interest, if her affection for

him were not sufficient, to make him as much comfort and as little

expense as possible, that he might be the more strongly attached to

her, and have the less occasion to leave her. He concluded by assuring

me that whatever might be said against it, it certainly was better than

the way in which most young men lived who depended on salaries in New

York.

It is asserted by Southerners who have lived at the North, and

Northerners who lived at the South, that although the facilities

for licentiousness are much greater at the South, the evil of

licentiousness is much greater at the North. Not because the average

standard of “respectable position” requires a less expenditure at the

South, for the contrary is the case.[37] But it is said licentiousness

at the North is far more captivating, irresistible, and ruinous than at

the South. Its very intrigues, cloaks, hazards, and expenses, instead

of repressing the passions of young men, exasperate them, and increase

its degrading effect upon their character, producing hypocrisy,

interfering with high ambitions, destroying self-respect, causing the

worst possible results to their health, and giving them habits which

are inimical to future domestic contentment and virtue.

Possibly there is some ground for this assertion with regard to young

men in towns, though in rural life the advantage of the North, I

believe, is incomparable.

Mrs. Douglass, a Virginia woman, who was tried, convicted, and

punished, a year or two since, for teaching a number of slaves to read,

contrary to law, says in a letter from her jail—

“This subject demands the attention, not only of the religious

population, but of statesmen and law-makers. It is one great

evil hanging over the Southern Slave States, destroying domestic

happiness and the peace of thousands. It is summed up in the

single word—_amalgamation_. This, and this only, causes the vast

extent of ignorance, degradation, and crime that lies like a black

cloud over the whole South. And the practice is more general than

even the Southerners are willing to allow.

“Neither is it to be found only in the lower order of the white

population. It pervades the entire society. Its followers are

to be found among all ranks, occupations, and professions. The

white mothers and daughters of the South have suffered under it

for years—have seen their dearest affections trampled upon—their

hopes of domestic happiness destroyed, and their future lives

embittered, even to agony, by those who should be all in all to

them, as husbands, sons, and brothers. I cannot use too strong

language in reference to this subject, for I know that it will

meet with a heartfelt response from every Southern woman.”

A negress was hung this year in Alabama, for the murder of her child.

At her trial she confessed her guilt. She said her owner was the

father of the child, and that her mistress knew it, and treated it so

cruelly in consequence, that she had killed it to save it from further

suffering, and also to remove a provocation to her own ill-treatment.

A large planter told, as a reason for sending his boys to the North to

be educated, that there was no possibility of their being brought up in

decency at home. Another planter told me that he was intending to move

to a free country on this account. He said that the practice was not

occasional or general, it was universal. “There is not,” he said, “a

likely-looking black girl in this State that is not the concubine of a

white man. There is not an old plantation in which the grandchildren of

the owner are not whipped in the field by his overseer. I cannot bear

that the blood of the —— should run in the veins of slaves.” He was of

an old Scotch family.

* * * * *

_New Orleans, Sunday._—Walking this morning through a rather mean

neighbourhood I was attracted, by a loud chorus singing, to the open

door of a chapel or small church. I found a large congregation of

negroes assembled within, and the singing being just then concluded,

and a negro preacher commencing a sermon, I entered an empty pew near

the entrance. I had no sooner taken a seat than a negro usher came to

me, and, in the most polite manner, whispered—

“Won’t you please to let me give you a seat higher up, master, ‘long o’

tudder white folks?”

I followed him to the uppermost seat, facing the pulpit, where there

were three other white persons. One of them was a woman—old, very

plain, and not as well dressed as many of the negroes; another looked

like a ship’s officer, and was probably a member of the police force

in undress—what we call a spy, when we detect it in Europe; both of

these remained diligently and gravely attentive during the service; the

third was a foreign-looking person, very flashily dressed and sporting

a yellow-headed walking-stick, and much cheap jewelry.

The remainder of the congregation consisted entirely of coloured

persons, many of them, however, with light hair and hardly any

perceptible indications of having African blood. On the step of the

chancel were a number of children, and among these one of the loveliest

young girls that I ever saw. She was a light mulatto, and had an

expression of unusual intelligence and vivacity. During the service she

frequently smiled, I thought derisively, at the emotions and excitement

betrayed by the older people about her. She was elegantly dressed, and

was accompanied by a younger sister, who was also dressed expensively

and in good taste, but who was a shade darker, though much removed from

the blackness of the true negro, and of very good features and pleasant

expression.

The preacher was nearly black, with close woolly hair. His figure was

slight, he seemed to be about thirty years of age, and the expression

of his face indicated a refined and delicately sensitive nature. His

eye was very fine; bright, deep, and clear; his voice and manner

generally quiet and impressive.

The text was, “I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith;

henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of glory;” and the sermon

was an appropriate and generally correct explanation of the customs

of the Olympian games, and a proper and often eloquent application

of the figure to the Christian course of life. Much of the language

was highly metaphorical; the figures long, strange, and complicated,

yet sometimes, however, beautiful. Words were frequently misplaced,

and their meaning evidently misapprehended, while the grammar and

pronunciation were sometimes such as to make the idea intended to be

conveyed by the speaker incomprehensible to me. Vulgarisms and slang

phrases occasionally occurred, but evidently without any consciousness

of impropriety on the part of the speaker or his congregation.

As soon as I had taken my seat, my attention was attracted by an old

negro near me, whom I supposed for some time to be suffering under some

nervous complaint; he trembled, his teeth chattered, and his face,

at intervals, was convulsed. He soon began to respond aloud to the

sentiments of the preacher, in such words as these: “Oh, yes!” “That’s

it, that’s it!” “Yes, yes—glory—yes!” and similar expressions could

be heard from all parts of the house whenever the speaker’s voice was

unusually solemn, or his language and manner eloquent or excited.

Sometimes the outcries and responses were not confined to

ejaculations of this kind, but shouts, and groans, terrific shrieks,

and indescribable expressions of ecstacy—of pleasure or agony—and

even stamping, jumping, and clapping of hands were added. The tumult

often resembled that of an excited political meeting; and I was once

surprised to find my own muscles all stretched, as if ready for a

struggle—my face glowing, and my feet stamping—having been infected

unconsciously, as men often are, with instinctive bodily sympathy with

the excitement of the crowd. So wholly unintellectual was the basis of

this excitement, however, that I could not, when my mind retroverted to

itself, find any connection or meaning in the phrases of the speaker

that remained in my memory; and I have no doubt it was his “action”

rather than his sentiments, that had given rise to the excitement of

the congregation.

I took notes as well as I could of a single passage of the sermon. The

preacher having said that among the games of the arena, were “raaslin”

(wrestling) and boxing, and described how a combatant, determined

to win the prize, would come boldly up to his adversary and stand

square before him, looking him straight in the eyes, and while he

guarded himself with one hand, would give him a “lick” with the other,

continued in these words: “Then would he stop, and turn away his face,

and let the adversary hit back? No, my brethren, no, no! he’d follow

up his advantage, and give him another lick; and if he fell back, he’d

keep close after him, and not stop!—and not faint!—not be content with

merely driving him back!—but he’d _persevere_! (yes, glory!) and hit

him again! (that’s it, hit him again! hit him again! oh, glory! hi! hi!

glory!) drive him into the corner! and never, never stop till he had

him _down_! (glory, glory, glory!) and he had got his foot on his neck,

and the crown of wild olive leaves was placed upon his head by the

lord of the games. (Ha! ha! glory to the Lord! etc.) It was the custom

of the Olympian games, my brethren, for the victor to be crowned with

a crown of wild olive leaves; but sometimes, after all, it wouldn’t

be awarded right, because the lord of the games was a poor, frail,

erroneous man, and maybe he couldn’t see right, or maybe he wasn’t an

honest man, and would have his favourites among the combatants, and if

his favourite was beaten, he would not _allow_ it, but would declare

that he was the victor, and the crown would descend on _his_ head

(_glory!_) But there ain’t no danger of that with our fight with the

world, for our Lord is throned in justice. (Glory!—oh, yes! yes!—sweet

Lord! sweet Lord!) He seeth in secret, and he knoweth all things, and

there’s no chance for a mistake, and if we only will just persevere

and conquer, and conquer and persevere (yes, sir! oh, Lord, yes!) and

persevere—not for a year, or for two year, or ten year; nor for seventy

year, perhaps; but if we persevere—(yes! yes!)—if we persevere—(oh!

Lord! help us!)—if we persevere unto the end—(oh! oh! glory! glory!

glory!)—until he calls us home! (Frantic shouting.) Henceforth there is

laid up for us a crown of immortal glory—(Ha! ha! HA!)—not a crown of

wild olive leaves that begin to droop as soon as they touch our brow,

(oh! oh! oh!) but a crown of immortal glory! That fadeth not away!

Never begins to droop! But is immortal in the heavens!” (Tremendous

uproar, many of the congregation on their feet, and uttering cries and

shrieks impossible to be expressed in letters.) The shabby gentleman by

my side, who had been asleep, suddenly awakened, dropped his stick, and

shouted with all his might, “Glory to the Lord!”

The body of the house was filled by the audience; there were galleries,

but few persons were in them; on one side, two or three boys, and on

the other, on the seat nearest the pulpit, about a dozen women.

The preacher was drawing his sermon to a close, and offering some

sensible and pertinent advice, soberly and calmly, and the congregation

was attentive and comparatively quiet, when a small old woman,

perfectly black, among those in the gallery, suddenly rose, and began

dancing and clapping her hands; at first with a slow and measured

movement, and then with increasing rapidity, at the same time beginning

to shout “_ha! ha!_” The women about her arose also, and tried to hold

her, as there appeared great danger that she would fall out of the

gallery, and those below left their pews that she might not fall upon

them.

The preacher continued his remarks—much the best part of his

sermon—but it was plain that they were wasted; every one was looking at

the dancing woman in the gallery, and many were shouting and laughing

aloud (in joyful sympathy, I suppose). His eye flashed as he glanced

anxiously from the woman to the people, and then stopping in the middle

of a sentence, a sad smile came over his face; he closed the book and

bowed his head upon his hands to the desk. A voice in the congregation

struck into a tune, and the whole congregation rose and joined in a

roaring song. The woman was still shouting and dancing, her head thrown

back and rolling from one side to the other. Gradually her shout became

indistinct, she threw her arms wildly about instead of clapping her

hands, fell back into the arms of her companions, then threw herself

forward and embraced those before her, then tossed herself from side to

side, gasping, and finally sunk to the floor, where she remained at the

end of the song, kicking, as if acting a death struggle.

Another man now rose in the pulpit, and gave out a hymn, naming

number and page, and holding a book before him, though I thought he

did not read from it, and I did not see another book in the house.

Having recited seven verses, and repeated the number and page of the

hymn, he closed the book and commenced to address the congregation.

He was a tall, full-blooded negro, very black, and with a disgusting

expression of sensuality, cunning, and vanity in his countenance, and

a pompous, patronizing manner—a striking contrast, in all respects, to

the prepossessing, quiet, and modest young preacher who had preceded

him. He was dressed in the loosest form of the fashionable sack

overcoat, which he threw off presently, showing a white vest, gaudy

cravat, and a tight cut-away coat, linked together at the breast

with jet buttons. He commenced by proposing to further elucidate the

meaning of the apostle’s words; they had an important bearing, he said,

which his brother had not had time to bring out adequately before the

congregation. At first he leaned carelessly on the pulpit cushion,

laughing cunningly, and spoke in a low, deep, hoarse, indistinct,

and confidential tone; but soon he struck a higher key, drawling his

sentences like a street salesman, occasionally breaking out into a

yell with all the strength of extraordinarily powerful lungs, at the

same time taking a striking attitude and gesturing in an extraordinary

manner. This would create a frightful excitement in the people, and be

responded to with the loudest and most terrific shouts. I can compare

them to nothing else human I ever heard. Sometimes he would turn from

the audience and assume a personal opponent to be standing by his side

in the pulpit. Then, after battling for a few minutes in an awful and

majestic manner with this man of Belial, whom he addressed constantly

as “sir!” he would turn again to the admiring congregation, and in a

familiar, gratulatory, and conversational tone explain the difficulty

into which he had got him, and then again suddenly turn back upon him,

and in a boxing attitude give another knock-down reply to his heretical

propositions.

His language was in a great part unintelligible to me, but the

congregation seemed to enjoy it highly, and encouraged and assisted him

in his combat with “Sir” Knight of his imagination most tumultuously;

and I soon found that this poor gentleman, over whom he rode his

high horse so fiercely, was one of those “who take unto themselves

the name of Baptist,” and that the name of his own charger was

“_Perseverance-of-the-Saints_.”

The only intelligible argument that I could discover, was presented

under the following circumstances. Having made his supposed adversary

assert that “if a man would only just believe, and let him bury him

under de water, he would be saved,”—he caught up the big pulpit Bible,

and using it as a catapult, pretended to hurl from it the reply—“Except

ye persevere and fight de good fight unto de end, ye shall be damned!”

“That’s it, that’s it!” shouted the delighted audience. “Yes! you

shall be damned! Ah! you’ve got it now, have ye! Pooh!—Wha’s de use

o’ his tellin’ us dat ar?” he continued, turning to the congregation

with a laugh; “wha’s de use on’t, when we know dat a month arter he’s

buried ’em under de water—whar do we find ’em? Ha? ah ha! Whar? In de

grog-shop! (ha! ha! ha! ha!) Yes we do, don’t we? (Yes! yes!) In de

rum-hole! (Ha! ha! ha! Yes! yes! oh Lord!) and we know de spirit of

rum and de Spirit of God hasn’t got no ‘finities. (Yah! ha! ha! yes!

yes! dat’s it! dat’s it! oh, my Jesus! Oh! oh! glory! glory!) Sut’nly,

sah! You may launch out upon de ocean a drop of oil way up to Virginny,

and we’ll launch annudder one heah to Lusiana, and when dey meets—no

matter how far dey been gone—dey’ll unite! Why, sah? Because dey’s got

de ‘finities, sah! But de spirit of rum haint got nary sort o’ ‘finity

with de Spirit,” etc.

Three of the congregation threw themselves into hysterics during

this harangue, though none were so violent as that of the woman in

the gallery. The man I had noticed first from his strange convulsive

motions, was shaking as if in a violent ague, and frequently snatched

the sleeve of his coat in his teeth as if he would rend it. The speaker

at length returned to the hymn, repeated the number and page and the

first two lines. These were sung, and he repeated the next, and so on,

as in the Scotch Presbyterian service. The congregation sang; I think

every one joined, even the children, and the collective sound was

wonderful. The voices of one or two women rose above the rest, and one

of these soon began to introduce variations, which consisted mainly of

shouts of Oh! oh! at a piercing height. Many of the singers kept time

with their feet, balancing themselves on each alternately, and swinging

their bodies accordingly. The reading of the lines would be accompanied

also by shouts, as during the previous discourse.

When the preacher had concluded reading the last two lines, as the

singing again proceeded, he raised his own voice above all, turned

around, clapped his hands, and commenced to dance, and laughed

aloud—first with his back, and then with his face to the audience.

The singing ceased, but he continued his movements, leaping, with

increasing agility, from one side of the pulpit to the other. The

people below laughed and shouted, and the two other preachers who were

shut in the pulpit with the dancer, tried hard to keep out of his way,

and threw forward their arms or shoulders, to fend off his powerful

buffets as he surged about between them. Swinging out his arms at

random, with a blow of his fist he knocked the great Bible spinning off

the desk, to the great danger of the children below; then threw himself

back, jamming the old man, who was trying to restrain him, against the

wall.

At the next heave, he pitched headforemost into the young preacher,

driving him through the door and falling with him half down the stairs,

and after bouncing about a few moments, jerking his arms and legs

violently, like a supple jack, in every direction, and all the time

driving his breath with all the noise possible between his set teeth,

and trying to foam at the mouth and act an epileptic fit, there he lay

as if dead, the young preacher, with the same sad smile, and something

of shame on his face, sitting on the stair holding his head on his

shoulder, and grasping one of his hands, while his feet were extended

up into the pulpit.

The third man in the pulpit, a short, aged negro, with a smiling face,

and a pleasing manner, took the Bible, which was handed up to him by

one of the congregation, laid it upon the desk, and, leaning over it,

told the people, in a gentle, conversational tone, that the “love

feast” would be held at four o’clock; gave some instructions about the

tickets of admission, and severely reproved those, who were in the

habit of coming late, and insisted upon being let in after the doors

were locked. He then announced that the doxology would be sung, which

accordingly followed, another woman going into hysterics at the close.

The prostrate man rose, and released the young preacher, who pronounced

the Apostles’ blessing, and the congregation slowly passed out,

chatting and saluting one another politely as they went, and bearing

not the slightest mark of the previous excitement.

I came to Mr. R.’s plantation by a steamboat, late at night. As the

boat approached the shore, near his house, her big bell having been

rung some ten minutes previously, a negro came out with a lantern to

meet her. The boat’s bow was run boldly against the bank; I leaped

ashore, the clerk threw out a newspaper and a package, saying to the

negro, “That’s for your master, and that’s for so-and-so, tell your

master, and ask him to give it to him.” The boat bounded off at once,

by her own elasticity, the starboard wheel was backed for a turn or

two, and the next minute the great edifice was driving up the stream

again—not a rope having been lifted, nor any other movement having been

made on board, except by the pilot and engineer.

“Do you belong to Mr. R.?” I asked the negro. “Yes, sir; is you going

to our house, master?” “Yes.” “I’ll show you the way, then, sir;” and

he conducted me in, leaving the parcels the clerk had thrown out, where

they had fallen, on the bank.

A negro woman prepared a bed for me, waited at the door till I had put

out my light, and then returned to tuck in the musquito-bar tightly

about the bed. This was merely from custom, as there were no musquitoes

at that season. In the morning the same woman awakened me, opened the

curtains, and asked me to take the money which she had found in the

pockets of my clothing, while she took it out to be brushed.

Mr. R. is a Southerner by birth, but was educated at the North, where,

also, and in foreign countries, he has spent a large part of his life.

He is a man of more than usual precision of mind, energetic and humane;

and while his negroes seemed to be better disciplined than any others

I had seen, they evidently regarded him with affection, respect, and

pride.

He had been ill for some weeks previous to my visit, and when he

walked out with me, on the second day, it was the first time since the

commencement of his illness that his field-hands had seen him.

The first negroes we met were half a dozen women, who were going up

to the nursery to suckle their children—the overseer’s bell having

been just rung (at eleven o’clock), to call them in from work for that

purpose. Mr. R. said that he allowed them two hours to be with their

children while nursing at noon, and to leave work an hour earlier at

night than the other field-hands. The women all stopped as we met them,

and asked, with much animation:

“Oh, master! how is ou?”

“Well, I’m getting up. How are you, girls?”

“Oh, we’s well, sir.”

“The children all well?”

“Yes, master, all but Sukey’s, sir.”

“Sukey’s? What, isn’t that well yet?”

“No, master.”

“But it’s getting well, is it not?”

“Yes, master.”

Soon after we met a boy, driving a cart. He pulled up as he came

against us, and, taking off his hat, asked, “How is ‘ou, master?”

“I’m getting well, you see. If I don’t get about, and look after you,

I’m afraid we shan’t have much of a crop. I don’t know what you niggers

will do for Christmas money.”

“Ha!—look heah, massa!—you jus’ go right straight on de ways you’s

goin’; see suthin’ make you laugh, ha! ha!” (meaning the work that had

been done while he was ill, and the good promise of a crop).

The plantation contained about nine hundred acres of tillage land,

and a large tract of “swamp,” or woodland, was attached to it. The

tillage land was inclosed all in one field by a strong cypress post

and rail fence, and was drained by two canals, five feet deep, running

about twenty feet apart, and parallel—the earth from both being thrown

together, so as to make a high, dry road between them, straight through

the middle of the plantation.

Fronting upon the river, and but six or eight rods from the public

road, which everywhere runs close along the shore inside the levee, was

the mansion of the proprietor: an old Creole house, the lower story

of brick and the second of wood, with a broad gallery, shaded by the

extended roof, running all around it; the roof steep, and shedding

water on four sides, with ornaments of turned wood where lines met, and

broken by several small dormer windows. The gallery was supported by

round brick columns, and arches. The parlours, library, and sleeping

rooms of the white family were all on the second floor. Between the

house and the street was a yard, planted formally with orange-trees

and other evergreens. A little on one side of the house stood a large

two-story, square dove-cot, which is a universal appendage of a

sugar-planter’s house. In the rear of the house was another large yard,

in which, irregularly placed, were houses for the family servants,

a kitchen, stable, carriage-house, smoke-house, etc. Behind this

rear-yard there was a vegetable garden, of an acre or more, in the

charge of a negro gardener; a line of fig-trees were planted along the

fence, but all the ground inclosed was intended to be cropped with

vegetables for the family, and for the supply of “the people.” I was

pleased to notice, however, that the negro-gardener had, of his own

accord, planted some violets and other flowering plants. From a corner

of the court a road ran to the sugar-works and the negro settlement,

which were five or six hundred yards from the house.

The negro houses were exactly like those I have described on the

Georgia Rice Plantation, except that they were provided with broad

galleries in front. They were as neat and well-made externally as the

cottages usually provided by large manufacturing companies in New

England, to be rented to their workmen. The clothing furnished the

negroes, and the rations of bacon and meal, were the same as on other

good plantations. During the grinding season extra rations of flour

were served, and hot coffee was kept constantly in the sugar-house, and

the hands on duty were allowed to drink it almost _ad libitum_. They

were also allowed to drink freely of the hot _sirop_, of which they

were extremely fond. A generous allowance of _sirop_, or molasses, was

also given out to them, with their other rations, every week during

the winter and early summer. In extremely hot weather it was thought

to be unfavourable to health, and was discontinued. Rations of tobacco

were also served. At Christmas, a sum of money, equal to one dollar

for each hogshead of sugar made on the plantation, was divided among

the negroes. The last year this had amounted to over two dollars a

head. It was usually given to the heads of families. If any had been

particularly careless or lazy, it was remembered at this Christmas

dole. Of course, the effect of this arrangement, small as was the

amount received by each person, was to give the labourers a direct

interest in the economical direction of their labour: the advantage of

it was said to be evident.

Mr. R. had purchased the plantation but three years before, and had

afterwards somewhat increased its area by buying out several poor

people, who had owned small farms adjoining. He had greatly extended

and improved the drainage, and had nearly doubled the force of negroes

employed upon it, adding to the number that he purchased with the land,

nearly as many more whom he had inherited, and whom he transferred to

it from an old cotton plantation that he had formerly lived upon.

He had considerably more than doubled the stock of mules and oxen; had

built entirely new cabins for all the negroes, and new sugar-works

and stables. His whole capital, he said, when he first bought the

plantation, would not have paid half the price of it and of the cost

of stocking it as he had done. Most men when they buy a plantation, he

informed me, go very heavily in debt; frequently the purchase is made

three quarters on credit.

“Buying a plantation,” were his words, “whether a sugar or cotton

plantation, in this country, is usually essentially a gambling

operation. The capital invested in a sugar plantation of the size of

mine ought not to be less than $150,000. The purchaser pays down what

he can, and usually gives security for the payment of the balance in

six annual instalments, with interest (10 per cent. per annum) from the

date of the purchase. Success in sugar, as well as cotton planting,

is dependent on so many circumstances, that it is as much trusting to

luck as betting on a throw of dice. If his first crop proves a bad

one, he must borrow money of the Jews in New Orleans to pay his first

note; they will sell him this on the best terms they can—often at not

less than 25 per cent. per annum. If three or four bad crops follow one

another, he is ruined. But this is seldom the case, and he lives on,

one year gaining a little on his debts, but almost as often enlarging

them. Three or four years ago there was hardly a planter in Louisiana

or Mississippi who was not in very embarrassed circumstances, nearly

every one having his crops pledged to his creditors long before they

were secured. The good prices and good crops of the last few years have

set them all on their legs again; and this year all the jewellers’

shops, and stores of rich furniture and dry goods, in New Orleans,

were cleared out by the middle of the season, and everybody feels

strong and cheerful. I have myself been particularly fortunate; I have

made three good crops in succession. Last year I made six hundred and

fifty hogsheads of sugar, and twelve hundred barrels of molasses. The

molasses alone brought me a sum sufficient to pay all my plantation

expenses; and the sugar yields me a clear profit of twenty-five per

cent. on my whole investment. If I make another crop this year as good

as that, I shall be able to discount my outstanding notes, and shall be

clear of debt at the end of four years, instead of six, which was all I

had hoped for.”

On another plantation, which I have since visited, which had a slave

population of over two hundred—counted as one hundred field-hands—the

sugar works cost $40,000, and seven hundred barrels of sugar were made

last year. On this plantation there is a steam-pump, which drains the

rear of the plantation over a levee, when the back-water from the swamp

would otherwise prevent perfect drainage.

Mr. R. modestly credited his extraordinary success to “luck;” but I

was satisfied, upon examining his improvements, and considering the

reasons, which he readily gave for every operation which he showed, or

described to me, that intelligence, study, and enterprise had seldom

better claims to reward. Adjoining his plantation there was another of

nearly twice the size, on which an equal number of negroes and only

half the number of cattle were employed; and the proprietor, I was

told, had had rather _bad luck_: he had, in fact, made but little more

than half as much sugar as Mr. R. I inquired of the latter if there was

any advantage in his soil over that of his neighbour’s. “I think not,”

he replied; “my best cane was made on a piece of land adjoining his,

which, before I bought it, was thought unfit for cultivation. The great

advantage I had over him last year, mainly arose from my having secured

a more complete drainage of all my land.”

The soil of the greater part of the plantation was a fine, dark, sandy

loam; some of it, at the greatest distance from the river, was lighter

in colour, and more clayey; and in one part, where there was a very

slight depression of the surface over about fifty acres, there was a

dark, stiffish soil. It was this to which Mr. R. alluded as having

produced his best cane. It had been considered too low, wet, tenacious,

and unfertile to be worthy of cultivation by the former owner, and was

covered with bushes and weeds when he took it. The improvement had been

effected entirely by draining and fall-ploughing. In fall-ploughing,

as a remedy for tenacity of soil, this gentleman’s experience had

given him great faith. At various points, on my tour, I found most

conflicting opinions upon this point, many (among them the President

of a State Agricultural Society) having invariably observed pernicious

effects result from it.

The sugar-cane is a perennial-rooted plant, and the stalk does not

attain its full size, under favourable circumstances, in less growing

time than twelve months; and seed does not usually form upon it until

the thirteenth or fourteenth month. This function (termed _arrowing_)

it only performs in a very hot and steadily hot climate, somewhat

rarely even in the West Indies. The plant is, at all stages, extremely

susceptible to cold, a moderate frost not only suspending its growth,

but disorganizing it so that the chemical qualities of its sap are

changed, and it is rendered valueless for sugar making.

As frosts of considerable severity are common in all parts of

Louisiana, during three months of the year, of course the sugar-cane

is there never permitted to attain its full growth. To so much greater

perfection does it arrive in the West Indies, that the cane produced

on one acre will yield from 3,000 to 6,000 lbs. of sugar, while in

Louisiana 1,000 is considered the average obtained. “I could make sugar

in the climate of Cuba,” said a Louisiana planter to me, “for half

the price that, under the most favourable circumstances, it must cost

here.” In addition to the natural uncongeniality of the climate, the

ground on which it grows in Louisiana, being lower than the surface

of the river, is much of the time made cold by the infiltration of

moisture. It is, therefore, only by reason of the extreme fertility of

this alluvial deposit, assisted by a careful method of cultivation,

that the cane is forced to a state of maturity which enables it to

yield an amount of sugar which, with the assistance of a governmental

protection against foreign competition, will be remunerative to the

planter.

I must confess that there seems to me room for grave doubt if the

capital, labour, and especially the human life, which have been and

which continue to be spent in converting the swamps of Louisiana into

sugar plantations, and in defending them against the annual assaults

of the river, and the fever and the cholera, could not have been

better employed somewhere else. It is claimed as a great advantage of

Slavery, as well as of Protection, that what has been done for this

purpose never would have been done without it. If it would not, the

obvious reason is, that the wages, or prospect of profit would not

have been sufficient to induce free men to undergo the inconveniences

and the danger incident to the enterprise. There is now great wealth

in Louisiana; but I question if greater wealth would not have been

obtained by the same expenditure of human labour, and happiness, and

life, in very many other directions.

Planting commences immediately after the sugar-manufacturing season

is concluded—usually in January. New or fallow land is prepared by

ploughing the whole surface: on this plantation the plough used was

made in Kentucky, and was of a very good model, ploughing seven to

nine inches deep, with a single pair of mules. The ground being then

harrowed, drills are opened with a double mould-board plough, seven

feet apart. Cuttings of cane for seed are to be planted in them. These

are reserved from the crop in the autumn, when some of the best cane on

the plantation is selected for this purpose, while still standing.[38]

This is cut off at the roots, and laid up in heaps or stacks, in such

a manner that the leaves and tops protect the stalks from frost. The

heaps are called mattresses; they are two or three feet high, and as

many yards across. At the planting season they are opened, and the cane

comes out moist and green, and sweet, with the buds or eyes, which

protrude at the joints, swelling. The immature top parts of the stalk

are cut off, and they are loaded into carts, and carried to the ground

prepared for planting. The carts used are large, with high side-boards,

and are drawn by three mules—one large one being in the shafts, and two

lighter ones abreast, before her. The drivers are boys, who use the

whip a great deal, and drive rapidly.

In the field I found the labourers working in three divisions—the

first, consisting of light hands, brought the cane by arms-full from

the cart, and laid it by the side of the furrows; the second planted

it, and the third covered it. Planting is done by laying the cuttings

at the bottom of the furrow, in such a way that there shall be three

always together, with the eyes of each a little removed from those of

the others—that is, all “breaking joints.” They are thinly covered with

earth, drawn over them with hoes. The other tools were so well selected

on this plantation, that I expressed surprise at the clumsiness of

the hoes, particularly as the soil was light, and entirely free from

stones. “Such hoes as you use at the North would not last a negro a

day,” said the planter.

Cane will grow for several years from the roots of the old plants,

and, when it is allowed to do so, a very considerable part of the

expense is avoided; but the vigour of the plant is less when growing

from this source than when starting from cuttings, and the crop,

when thus obtained, is annually less and less productive, until,

after a number of years, depending upon the rigour of the seasons,

fresh shoots cease to spring from the stubble. This sprouting of cane

from the stools of the last crop is termed “ratooning.” In the West

India plantations the cane is frequently allowed to ratoon for eight

successive crops. In Louisiana it is usual to plant once in three

years, trusting to the ratooning for two crops only, and this was the

practice on Mr. R.’s plantation. The cost of sugar growing would be

very greatly increased if the crop needed planting every year; for all

the cane grown upon an acre will not furnish seed for more than four

acres—consequently one-twelfth of the whole of each crop has to be

reserved for the planting of the following crop, even when two-thirds

of this is to be of ratoon cane.

Planting is finished in a favourable season—early in March. Tillage

is commenced immediately afterwards, by ploughing _from_ the rows of

young cane, and subsequently continued very much after the usual plans

of tillage for potatoes, when planted in drills, with us. By or before

the first of July, the crop is all well earthed up, the rows of cane

growing from the crest of a rounded bed, seven feet wide, with deep

water-furrows between each. The cane is at this time five or six feet

high; and that growing from each bed forms arches with that of the

next, so as to completely shade the ground. The furrows between the

beds are carefully cleaned out; so that in the most drenching torrents

of rain, the water is rapidly carried off into the drains, and thence

to the swamp; and the crop then requires no further labour upon it

until frost is apprehended, or the season for grinding arrives.

The nearly three months’ interval, commencing at the intensest heat

of summer, corresponds in the allotment of labour to the period of

winter in Northern agriculture, because the winter itself, on the

sugar-plantations, is the planting-season. The negroes are employed

in cutting and carting wood for boiling the cane-juice, in making

necessary repairs or additions to the sugar-house, and otherwise

preparing for the grinding-season.

The grinding-season is the harvest of the sugar-planter; it commences

in October, and continues for two or three months, during which

time, the greatest possible activity and the utmost labour of which

the hands are capable, are required to secure the product of the

previous labour of the year. Mr. R. assured me that during the last

grinding-season nearly every man, woman, and child on his plantation,

including the overseer and himself, were on duty fully eighteen hours

a day. From the moment grinding first commences, until the end of the

season, it is never discontinued: the fires under the boiler never go

out, and the negroes only rest for six hours in the twenty-four, by

relays—three-quarters of them being constantly at work.

Notwithstanding the severity of the labour required of them at this

time, Mr. R. said that his negroes were as glad as he was himself

to have the time for grinding arrive, and they worked with greater

cheerfulness than at any other season. How can those persons who

are always so ready to maintain that the slaves work less than free

labourers in free countries, and that for that reason they are to be

envied by them, account for this? That at Mr. R.’s plantation it was

the case that the slaves enjoyed most that season of the year when the

hardest labour was required of them, I have, in addition to Mr. R.’s

own evidence, good reason to believe, which I shall presently report.

And the reason of it evidently is, that they are then better paid;

they have better and more varied food and stimulants than usual, but

especially they have a degree of freedom, and of social pleasure, and a

variety of occupation which brings a recreation of the mind, and to a

certain degree gives them strength for, and pleasure in, their labour.

Men of sense have discovered that when they desire to get extraordinary

exertions from their slaves, it is better to offer them rewards than to

whip them; to encourage them, rather than to drive them.

If the season has been favourable, so that the cane is strong, and

well matured, it will endure a smart early frost without injury,

particularly if the ground is well drained; but as rapidly as possible,

after the season has arrived at which frosts are to be expected, the

whole crop is cut, and put in mattresses, from which it is taken to the

grinding-mill as fast as it can be made to use it.

The business of manufacturing sugar is everywhere carried on in

connection with the planting of the cane. The shortness of the season

during which the cane can be used is the reason assigned for this:

the proprietors would not be willing to trust to custom-mills to

manufacture their produce with the necessary rapidity. If cane should

be cultivated in connection with other crops—that is, on small farms,

instead of great “sugar only” plantations—neighbourhood custom-mills

would probably be employed. The profit of a sugar-plantation is now

large, much in proportion to its size (if it be proportionately

stocked); because only a very large supply of cane will warrant the

proprietor in providing the most economical manufacturing apparatus.

In 1849 there were 1,474 sugar estates in Louisiana, producing 236,547

hhds. of sugar; but it is thought that half of this quantity was

produced on less than 200 estates—that is, that one-eighth of the

plantations produced one-half the sugar. The sugar-works on some of

the large estates cost over $100,000, and many of them manufacture

over 1,000,000 lbs. per annum. The profits of these, under our present

tariff, in a favourable season, are immense.

The apparatus used upon the better class of plantations is very

admirable, and improvements are yearly being made, which indicate high

scientific acquirements, and much mechanical ingenuity on the part

of the inventors. The whole process of sugar manufacturing, although

chemical analysis proves that a large amount of saccharine is still

wasted, has been within a few years greatly improved, principally by

reason of the experiments and discoveries of the French chemists,

whose labours have been directed by the purpose to lessen the cost of

beet-sugar. Apparatus for various processes in the manufacture, which

they have invented or recommended, has been improved, and brought

into practical operation on a large scale on some of the Louisiana

plantations, the owners of which are among the most intelligent,

enterprising, and wealthy men of business in the United States.

Forty-three plantations in the State are now furnished with apparatus

constructed in accordance with the best scientific knowledge on the

subject; and 914 are driven by steam-engines—leaving but 560 to be

worked by horse-power. Mr. R.’s sugar-house, for making brown sugar,

was furnished with the best kind of apparatus, at a cost of $20,000.

Preparations were making for the addition of works for the manufacture

of white loaf sugar, which would cost $20,000 more. I have visited one

plantation on which the sugar-works are said to have cost over $100,000.

* * * * *

At one corner of Mr. R.’s plantation, there was a hamlet consisting

of about a dozen small houses or huts, built of wood or clay, in the

old French peasant style. The residents owned small farms, on which

they raised a little corn and rice; but Mr. R. described them as lazy

vagabonds, doing but little work, and spending much time in shooting,

fishing, and play. He wanted much to buy all their land, and get them

to move away. He had already bought out some of them, and had made

arrangements by which he hoped soon to get hold of the land of some

of the rest. He was willing to pay two or three times as much as the

property was actually worth, to get them to move off. As fast as he got

possession, he destroyed their houses and gardens, removed their fences

and trees, and brought all their land into his cane-plantation.

Some of them were mechanics. One was a very good mason, and he

employed him in building his sugar-works and refinery; but he would be

glad to get rid of them all, and depend entirely on slave mechanics—of

these he had several already, and he could buy more when he needed them.

Why did he so dislike to have these poor people living near him, I

asked? Because, he straightway answered, they demoralized his negroes.

Seeing them living in apparent comfort, without much property and

without steady labour, the slaves could not help thinking that it was

unnecessary for men to work so hard as they themselves were obliged

to, and that if they were free they would not work. Besides, the

intercourse of these people with the negroes was not favourable to good

discipline. They would get the negroes to do them little services, and

would pay with luxuries which he did not wish his slaves to have. It

was better that they never saw anybody off their own plantation; they

should, if possible, have no intercourse with any other white men than

their owner or overseer; especially, it was desirable that they should

not see white men who did not command their respect, and whom they did

not always feel to be superior to themselves, and able to command them.

The nuisance of petty traders dealing with the negroes, and

encouraging them to pilfer, which I found everywhere a great annoyance

to planters, seems to be greater on the banks of the Mississippi

than elsewhere. The traders generally come on boats, which they moor

at night on the shore, adjoining the negro-quarters, and float away

whenever they have obtained any booty, with very small chance of

detection. One day, during my visit at Mr. R.’s, a neighbour called

to apprise him that one of these trading-boats was in the vicinity,

that he might take precautions to prevent his negroes dealing with it.

“The law,” he observed, with much feeling, “is entirely inadequate to

protect us against these rascals; it rather protects them than us.

They easily evade detection in breaking it; and we can never get them

punished, except we go beyond or against the law ourselves.” To show me

how vexatious the evil was, he mentioned that a large brass cock and

some pipe had been lately stolen from his sugar-works, and that he had

ascertained that one of his negroes had taken it and sold it on board

one of these boats for seventy-five cents, and had immediately spent

the money, chiefly for whisky, on the same boat. It had cost him thirty

dollars to replace it. Mr. R. said that he had lately caught one of his

own negroes going towards one of the “chicken thieves” (so the traders’

boats are locally called) with a piece of machinery, unscrewed from

his sugar-works, which had cost him eighty dollars, but which would,

very likely, have been sold for a drink. If the negro had succeeded

in reaching the boat, as he would, if a watch had not been kept, he

could never have recovered it. There would have been no witnesses to

the sale; the stolen goods would have been hid on board until the boat

reached New Orleans; or, if an officer came to search the boat, they

would have been dropped into the river, before he got on board.

This neighbour of Mr. R.’s had been educated in France. Conversing on

the inconveniences of Slavery, he acknowledged that it was not only an

uneconomical system, but a morally wrong one; “but,” he said, “it was

not instituted by us—we are not responsible for it. It is unfortunately

fixed upon us; we could not do away with it if we wished; our duty is

only to make the best of a bad thing; to lessen its evils as much as we

can, so far as we have to do with it individually.”

Mr. R. himself also acknowledged Slavery to be a very great evil,

morally and economically. It was a curse upon the South; he had no

doubt at all about it: nothing would be more desirable than its

removal, if it were possible to be accomplished. But he did not think

it could be abolished without instituting greater evils than those

sought to be remedied. Its influence on the character of the whites was

what was most deplorable. He was sorry to think that his children would

have to be subject to it. He thought that eventually, if he were able

to afford it, he should free his slaves and send them to Africa.

When I left Mr. R.’s, I was driven about twenty miles in a buggy,

by one of his house servants. He was inclined to be talkative and

communicative; and as he expressed great affection and respect for his

owner, I felt at liberty to question him on some points upon which I

had always previously avoided conversing with slaves. He spoke rapidly,

garrulously; and it was only necessary for me to give a direction

to his thoughts, by my inquiries. I was careful to avoid leading

questions, and not to show such an interest as would lead him to reply

guardedly. I charged my memory as much as possible with his very words,

when this was of consequence, and made the following record of the

conversation within half an hour after I left him.

He first said that he supposed that I would see that he was not a

“Creole nigger;” he came from Virginia. He reckoned the Virginia

negroes were better looking than those who were raised here; there were

no black people anywhere in the world who were so “well made” as those

who were born in Virginia. He asked if I lived in New Orleans; and

where? I told him that I lived at the North. He asked:

“Da’s a great many brack folks dah, massa?”

“No; very few.”

“Da’s a great many in Virginny; more’n da is heah?”

“But I came from beyond Virginia—from New York.”

He had heard there were a great many black folk in New York. I said

there were a good many in the city; but few in the country. Did I live

in the country? What people did I have for servants? Thought, if I

hired all my labour, it must be very dear. He inquired further about

negroes there. I told him they were all free, and described their

general condition; told him what led them to congregate in cities,

and what the effect was. He said the negroes, both slave and free,

who lived in New Orleans, were better off than those who lived in the

country. Why? Because they make more money, and it is “gayer” there,

and there is more “society.” He then drew a contrast between Virginia,

as he recollected it, and Louisiana. There is but one road in this

country. In Virginia, there are roads running in every direction, and

often crossing each other. You could see so much more “society,” and

there was so much more “variety” than here. He would not like now to

go back to Virginia to live, because he had got used to this country,

and had all his acquaintances here, and knew the ways of the people. He

could speak French. He would like to go to New Orleans, though; would

rather live in New Orleans than any other place in the world.

After a silence of some minutes, he said, abruptly—

“If I was free, I would go to Virginia, and see my old mudder.” He

had left her when he was thirteen years old. He reckoned he was now

thirty-three. “I don’t well know, dough, exactly, how old I is; but,

I rec’lect, de day I was taken away, my ole mudder she tell me I was

tirteen year old.” He did not like to come away at all; he “felt

dreadful bad;” but, now he was used to it, he liked living here. He

came across the Blue Ridge, and he recollected that, when he first saw

it, he thought it was a dark piece of sky, and he wondered what it

would be like when they came close to it. He was brought, with a great

many other negroes, in waggons, to Louisville; and then they were put

on board a steamboat, and brought down here. He was sold, and put on

this plantation, and had been on it ever since. He had been twice sold,

along with it. Folks didn’t very often sell their servants away here,

as they did in Virginia. They were selling their servants, in Virginia,

all the time; but, here, they did not very often sell them, except they

run away. When a man would run away, and they could not do anything

with him, they always sold him off. The people were almost all French.

“Were there any French in New York?” he asked. I told him there were;

but not as many as in Louisiana. “I s’pose dah is more of French people

in Lusiana, dan dah is anywhar else in all de world—a’nt dah, massa?”

“Except in France.”

“Wa’s dat, sar?”

“France is the country where all the Frenchmen came from, in the first

place.”

“Wa’s dat France, massa?”

“France is a country across the ocean, the big water, beyond Virginia,

where all the Frenchmen first came from; just as the black people all

came first from Africa, you know.”

“I’ve heered, massa, dat dey sell one anoder dah, in de fus place. Does

you know, sar, was dat so?” This was said very gravely.

I explained the savage custom of making slaves of prisoners of war, and

described the constant wars of the native Africans. I told him that

they were better off here than they would be to be the slaves of cruel

savages, in Africa. He turned, and looking me anxiously in the face,

like a child, asked:

“_Is_ de brack folks better off to be here, massa?”

I answered that I thought so; and described the heathenish barbarism

of the people of Africa. I made exception of Liberia, knowing that

his master thought of some time sending him there, and described it

as a place that was settled by negroes who went back there from this

country. He said he had heard of it, and that they had sent a great

many free negroes from New Orleans there.

After a moment’s pause, he inquired—very gravely, again:

“_Why is it_, massa, when de brack people is free, dey wants to send

’em away out of dis country?”

The question took me aback. After bungling a little—for I did not like

to tell him the white people were afraid to have them stay here—I said

that it was thought to be a better place for them there. He replied,

he should think, that, when they had got used to this country, it was

much better that they should be allowed to stay here. He would not like

to go out of this country. He wouldn’t like even to go to Virginia

now, though Virginia was such a pleasant country; he had been here so

long, seemed like this was the best place for him to live. To avoid

discussion of the point, I asked what he would do, if he were free?

“If I was free, massa; _if I was free_ (with great animation), I

would——well, sar, de fus thing I would do, if I was free, I would go to

work for a year, and get some money for myself,—den—den—den, massa, dis

is what I do—I buy me, fus place, a little house, and little lot land,

and den—no; den—den—I would go to old Virginny, and see my old mudder.

Yes, sar, I would like to do dat fus thing; den, when I com back, de

fus thing I’d do, I’d get me a wife; den, I’d take her to my house, and

I would live with her dar; and I would raise things in my garden, and

take ’em to New Orleans, and sell ’em dar, in de market. Dat’s de way I

would live, if I was free.”

He said, in answer to further inquiries, that there were many free

negroes all about this region. Some were very rich. He pointed out to

me three plantations, within twenty miles, owned by coloured men. These

bought black folks, he said, and had servants of their own. They were

very bad masters, very hard and cruel—hadn’t any feeling. “You might

think master, dat dey would be good to dar own nation; but dey is not.

I will tell you de truth, massa; I know I’se got to answer; and it’s

a fact, dey is very bad masters, sar. I’d rather be a servant to any

man in de world, dan to a brack man. If I was sold to a brack man, I’d

drown myself. I would dat—I’d drown myself! dough I shouldn’t like to

do dat nudder; but I wouldn’t be sold to a coloured master for anyting.”

If he had got to be sold, he would like best to have an American master

buy him. The French people did not clothe their servants well; though

now they did much better than when he first came to Louisiana. The

French masters were very severe, and “dey whip dar niggers most to

deff—dey whip de flesh off of ’em.”

Nor did they feed them as well as the Americans. “Why, sometimes,

massa, dey only gives ’em dry corn—don’t give out no meat at all.” I

told him this could not be so, for the law required that every master

should serve out meat to his negroes. “Oh, but some on ’em don’t mind

Law, if he does say so, massa. Law never here; don’t know anything

about him. _Very often_, dey only gives ’em dry corn—I knows dat; I

sees de niggers. Didn’t you see de niggers on our plantation, sar?

Well, you nebber see such a good-looking lot of niggers as ours on any

of de French plantations, did you, massa? Why, dey all looks fat, and

dey’s all got good clothes, and dey look as if dey all had plenty to

eat, and hadn’t got no work to do, ha! ha! ha! Don’t dey? But dey does

work, dough. Dey does a heap o’ work. But dey don’t work so hard as dey

does on some ob de French plantations. Oh, dey does work _too_ hard on

dem, sometimes.”

“You work hard in the grinding season, don’t you?”

“O, yes; den we works hard; we has to work hard den: harder dan any

oder time of year. But, I tell ‘ou, massa, I likes to hab de grinding

season come; yes, I does—rader dan any oder time of year, dough we

work so hard den. I wish it was grinding season all de year roun’—only

Sundays.”

“Why?”

“Because—oh, because it’s merry and lively. All de brack people like it

when we begin to grind.”

“You have to keep grinding Sundays?”

“Yes, can’t stop, when we begin to grind, till we get tru.”

“You don’t often work Sundays, except then?”

“No, massa! nebber works Sundays, except when der crap’s weedy, and

we want to get tru ’fore rain comes; den, wen we work a Sunday, massa

gives us some oder day for holiday—Monday, if we get tru.”

He said that, on the French plantations, they oftener work Sundays than

on the American. They used to work almost always on Sundays, on the

French plantations, when he was first brought to Louisiana; but they

did not so much now.

We were passing a hamlet of cottages, occupied by Acadians, or what the

planters call _habitans_, poor white French Creoles. The negroes had

always been represented to me to despise the habitans, and to look upon

them as their own inferiors; but William spoke of them respectfully;

and, when I tempted him to sneer at their indolence and vagabond

habits, refused to do so, but insisted very strenuously that they were

“very good people,” orderly and industrious. He assured me that I was

mistaken in supposing that the Creoles, who did not own slaves, did not

live comfortably, or that they did not work as hard as they ought for

their living. There were no better sort of people than they were, he

thought.

He again recurred to the fortunate condition of the negroes on his

master’s plantation. He thought it was the best plantation in the

State, and he did not believe there was a better lot of negroes in the

State; some few of them, whom his master had brought from his former

plantation, were old; but altogether, they were “as right good a lot of

niggers” as could be found anywhere. They could do all the work that

was necessary to be done on the plantation. On some old plantations

they had not nearly as many negroes as they needed to make the crop,

and they “drove ’em awful hard;” but it wasn’t so on his master’s:

they could do all the work, and do it well, and it was the best worked

plantation, and made the most sugar to the hand of any plantation he

knew of. All the niggers had enough to eat, and were well clothed;

their quarters were good, and they got a good many presents. He was

going on enthusiastically, when I asked:

“Well, now, wouldn’t you rather live on such a plantation than to be

free, William?”

“Oh! no, sir, I’d rather be free! Oh, yes, sir, I’d like it better to

be free; I would dat, master.”

“Why would you?”

“Why, you see, master, if I was free—if I was _free_, I’d have all my

time to myself. I’d rather work for myself. Yes. I’d like dat better.”

“But then, you know, you’d have to take care of yourself, and you’d get

poor.”

“No, sir, I would not get poor, I would get rich; for you see, master,

then I’d work all the time for myself.”

“Suppose all the black people on your plantation, or all the black

people in the country were made free at once, what do you think would

become of them?—what would they do, do you think? You don’t suppose

there would be much sugar raised, do you?”

“Why, yes, master, I do. Why not, sir? What would de brack people do?

Wouldn’t dey hab to work for dar libben? and de wite people own all

de land—war dey goin’ to work? Dey hire demself right out again, and

work all de same as before. And den, wen dey work for demself, dey work

harder dan dey do now to get more wages—a heap harder. I tink so, sir.

I would do so, sir. I would work for hire. I don’t own any land; I hab

to work right away again for massa, to get some money.”

Perceiving from the readiness of these answers that the subject had

been a familiar one with him, I immediately asked: “The black people

talk among themselves about this, do they; and they think so generally?”

“Oh! yes, sir; dey talk so; dat’s wat dey tink.”

“Then they talk about being free a good deal, do they?”

“Yes, sir. Dey—dat is, dey say dey wish it was so; dat’s all dey talk,

master—dat’s all, sir.”

His caution was evidently excited, and I inquired no further. We were

passing a large old plantation, the cabins of the negroes upon which

were wretched hovels—small, without windows, and dilapidated. A large

gang of negroes were at work by the road-side, planting cane. Two white

men were sitting on horseback, looking at them, and a negro-driver was

walking among them, with a whip in his hand.

William said that this was an old Creole plantation, and the negroes

on it were worked very hard. There was three times as much land in

it as in his master’s, and only about the same number of negroes to

work it. I observed, however, that a good deal of land had been left

uncultivated the previous year. The slaves appeared to be working hard;

they were shabbily clothed, and had a cowed expression, looking on

the ground, not even glancing at us, as we passed, and were perfectly

silent.

“Dem’s all Creole niggers,” said William: “ain’t no Virginny niggers

dah. I reckon you didn’t see no such looking niggers as dem on our

plantation, did you, master?”

After answering some inquiries about the levee, close inside of which

the road continually ran, he asked me about the levee at New York; and

when informed that we had not any levee, asked me with a good deal of

surprise, how we kept the water out? I explained to him that the land

was higher than the water, and was not liable, as it was in Louisiana,

to be overflowed. I could not make him understand this. He seemed never

to have considered that it was not the natural order of things that

land should be lower than water, or that men should be able to live on

land, except by excluding water artificially. At length, he said:—

“I s’pose dis heah State is de lowest State dar is in de world. Dar

ain’t no odder State dat is low so as dis is. I s’pose it is five

thousand five hundred feet lower dan any odder State.”

“What?”

“I spose, master, dat dis heah State is five thousand five hundred feet

lower down dan any odder, ain’t it, sir?”

“I don’t understand you.”

“I say dis heah is de lowest ob de States, master. I s’pose it’s _five

thousand five hundred feet_ lower dan any odder; lower _down_, ain’t

it, master?”

“Yes, it’s very low.”

This is a good illustration of the child-like quality common in the

negroes, and which in him was particularly noticeable, notwithstanding

the shrewdness of some of his observations. Such an apparent mingling

of simplicity and cunning, ingenuousness and slyness, detracted much

from the weight of his opinions and purposes in regard to freedom. I

could not but have a strong doubt if he would keep to his word, if the

opportunity were allowed him to try his ability to take care of himself.