ISOLATION OF LLOYD S PLANTATION—PUBLIC OPINION THERE NO PROTECTION TO
THE SLAVE—ABSOLUTE POWER OF THE OVERSEER—NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL CHARMS
OF THE PLACE—ITS BUSINESS-LIKE APPEARANCE—SUPERSTITION ABOUT THE BURIAL
GROUND—GREAT IDEAS OF COL. LLOYD—ETIQUETTE AMONG SLAVES—THE COMIC SLAVE
DOCTOR—PRAYING AND FLOGGING—OLD MASTER LOSING ITS TERRORS—HIS
BUSINESS—CHARACTER OF AUNT KATY—SUFFERINGS FROM HUNGER—OLD MASTER’S
HOME—JARGON OF THE PLANTATION—GUINEA SLAVES—MASTER DANIEL—FAMILY OF
COL. LLOYD—FAMILY OF CAPT. ANTHONY—HIS SOCIAL POSITION—NOTIONS OF RANK
AND STATION.
It is generally supposed that slavery, in the state of Maryland, exists
in its mildest form, and that it is totally divested of those harsh and
terrible peculiarities, which mark and characterize the slave system,
in the southern and south-western states of the American union. The
argument in favor of this opinion, is the contiguity of the free
states, and the exposed condition of slavery in Maryland to the moral,
religious and humane sentiment of the free states.
I am not about to refute this argument, so far as it relates to slavery
in that state, generally; on the contrary, I am willing to admit that,
to this general point, the arguments is well grounded. Public opinion
is, indeed, an unfailing restraint upon the cruelty and barbarity of
masters, overseers, and slave-drivers, whenever and wherever it can
reach them; but there are certain secluded and out-of-the-way places,
even in the state of Maryland, seldom visited by a single ray of
healthy public sentiment—where slavery, wrapt in its own congenial,
midnight darkness, _can_, and _does_, develop all its malign and
shocking characteristics; where it can be indecent without shame, cruel
without shuddering, and murderous without apprehension or fear of
exposure.
Just such a secluded, dark, and out-of-the-way place, is the “home
plantation” of Col. Edward Lloyd, on the Eastern Shore, Maryland. It is
far away from all the great thoroughfares, and is proximate to no town
or village. There is neither school-house, nor town-house in its
neighborhood. The school-house is unnecessary, for there are no
children to go to school. The children and grand-children of Col. Lloyd
were taught in the house, by a private tutor—a Mr. Page a tall, gaunt
sapling of a man, who did not speak a dozen words to a slave in a whole
year. The overseers’ children go off somewhere to school; and they,
therefore, bring no foreign or dangerous influence from abroad, to
embarrass the natural operation of the slave system of the place. Not
even the mechanics—through whom there is an occasional out-burst of
honest and telling indignation, at cruelty and wrong on other
plantations—are white men, on this plantation. Its whole public is made
up of, and divided into, three classes—SLAVEHOLDERS, SLAVES and
OVERSEERS. Its blacksmiths, wheelwrights, shoemakers, weavers, and
coopers, are slaves. Not even commerce, selfish and iron-hearted at it
is, and ready, as it ever is, to side with the strong against the
weak—the rich against the poor—is trusted or permitted within its
secluded precincts. Whether with a view of guarding against the escape
of its secrets, I know not, but it is a fact, the every leaf and grain
of the produce of this plantation, and those of the neighboring farms
belonging to Col. Lloyd, are transported to Baltimore in Col. Lloyd’s
own vessels; every man and boy on board of which—except the captain—are
owned by him. In return, everything brought to the plantation, comes
through the same channel. Thus, even the glimmering and unsteady light
of trade, which sometimes exerts a civilizing influence, is excluded
from this “tabooed” spot.
Nearly all the plantations or farms in the vicinity of the “home
plantation” of Col. Lloyd, belong to him; and those which do not, are
owned by personal friends of his, as deeply interested in maintaining
the slave system, in all its rigor, as Col. Lloyd himself. Some of his
neighbors are said to be even more stringent than he. The Skinners, the
Peakers, the Tilgmans, the Lockermans, and the Gipsons, are in the same
boat; being slaveholding neighbors, they may have strengthened each
other in their iron rule. They are on intimate terms, and their
interests and tastes are identical.
Public opinion in such a quarter, the reader will see, is not likely to
very efficient in protecting the slave from cruelty. On the contrary,
it must increase and intensify his wrongs. Public opinion seldom
differs very widely from public practice. To be a restraint upon
cruelty and vice, public opinion must emanate from a humane and
virtuous community. To no such humane and virtuous community, is Col.
Lloyd’s plantation exposed. That plantation is a little nation of its
own, having its own language, its own rules, regulations and customs.
The laws and institutions of the state, apparently touch it nowhere.
The troubles arising here, are not settled by the civil power of the
state. The overseer is generally accuser, judge, jury, advocate and
executioner. The criminal is always dumb. The overseer attends to all
sides of a case.
There are no conflicting rights of property, for all the people are
owned by one man; and they can themselves own no property. Religion and
politics are alike excluded. One class of the population is too high to
be reached by the preacher; and the other class is too low to be cared
for by the preacher. The poor have the gospel preached to them, in this
neighborhood, only when they are able to pay for it. The slaves, having
no money, get no gospel. The politician keeps away, because the people
have no votes, and the preacher keeps away, because the people have no
money. The rich planter can afford to learn politics in the parlor, and
to dispense with religion altogether.
In its isolation, seclusion, and self-reliant independence, Col.
Lloyd’s plantation resembles what the baronial domains were during the
middle ages in Europe. Grim, cold, and unapproachable by all genial
influences from communities without, _there it stands;_ full three
hundred years behind the age, in all that relates to humanity and
morals.
This, however, is not the only view that the place presents.
Civilization is shut out, but nature cannot be. Though separated from
the rest of the world; though public opinion, as I have said, seldom
gets a chance to penetrate its dark domain; though the whole place is
stamped with its own peculiar, ironlike individuality; and though
crimes, high-handed and atrocious, may there be committed, with almost
as much impunity as upon the deck of a pirate ship—it is, nevertheless,
altogether, to outward seeming, a most strikingly interesting place,
full of life, activity, and spirit; and presents a very favorable
contrast to the indolent monotony and languor of Tuckahoe. Keen as was
my regret and great as was my sorrow at leaving the latter, I was not
long in adapting myself to this, my new home. A man’s troubles are
always half disposed of, when he finds endurance his only remedy. I
found myself here; there was no getting away; and what remained for me,
but to make the best of it? Here were plenty of children to play with,
and plenty of places of pleasant resort for boys of my age, and boys
older. The little tendrils of affection, so rudely and treacherously
broken from around the darling objects of my grandmother’s hut,
gradually began to extend, and to entwine about the new objects by
which I now found myself surrounded.
There was a windmill (always a commanding object to a child’s eye) on
Long Point—a tract of land dividing Miles river from the Wye a mile or
more from my old master’s house. There was a creek to swim in, at the
bottom of an open flat space, of twenty acres or more, called “the Long
Green”—a very beautiful play-ground for the children.
In the river, a short distance from the shore, lying quietly at anchor,
with her small boat dancing at her stern, was a large sloop—the Sally
Lloyd; called by that name in honor of a favorite daughter of the
colonel. The sloop and the mill were wondrous things, full of thoughts
and ideas. A child cannot well look at such objects without _thinking_.
Then here were a great many houses; human habitations, full of the
mysteries of life at every stage of it. There was the little red house,
up the road, occupied by Mr. Sevier, the overseer. A little nearer to
my old master’s, stood a very long, rough, low building, literally
alive with slaves, of all ages, conditions and sizes. This was called
“the Longe Quarter.” Perched upon a hill, across the Long Green, was a
very tall, dilapidated, old brick building—the architectural dimensions
of which proclaimed its erection for a different purpose—now occupied
by slaves, in a similar manner to the Long Quarter. Besides these,
there were numerous other slave houses and huts, scattered around in
the neighborhood, every nook and corner of which was completely
occupied. Old master’s house, a long, brick building, plain, but
substantial, stood in the center of the plantation life, and
constituted one independent establishment on the premises of Col.
Lloyd.
Besides these dwellings, there were barns, stables, store-houses, and
tobacco-houses; blacksmiths’ shops, wheelwrights’ shops, coopers’
shops—all objects of interest; but, above all, there stood the grandest
building my eyes had then ever beheld, called, by every one on the
plantation, the “Great House.” This was occupied by Col. Lloyd and his
family. They occupied it; _I_ enjoyed it. The great house was
surrounded by numerous and variously shaped out-buildings. There were
kitchens, wash-houses, dairies, summer-house, green-houses, hen-houses,
turkey-houses, pigeon-houses, and arbors, of many sizes and devices,
all neatly painted, and altogether interspersed with grand old trees,
ornamental and primitive, which afforded delightful shade in summer,
and imparted to the scene a high degree of stately beauty. The great
house itself was a large, white, wooden building, with wings on three
sides of it. In front, a large portico, extending the entire length of
the building, and supported by a long range of columns, gave to the
whole establishment an air of solemn grandeur. It was a treat to my
young and gradually opening mind, to behold this elaborate exhibition
of wealth, power, and vanity. The carriage entrance to the house was a
large gate, more than a quarter of a mile distant from it; the
intermediate space was a beautiful lawn, very neatly trimmed, and
watched with the greatest care. It was dotted thickly over with
delightful trees, shrubbery, and flowers. The road, or lane, from the
gate to the great house, was richly paved with white pebbles from the
beach, and, in its course, formed a complete circle around the
beautiful lawn. Carriages going in and retiring from the great house,
made the circuit of the lawn, and their passengers were permitted to
behold a scene of almost Eden-like beauty. Outside this select
inclosure, were parks, where as about the residences of the English
nobility—rabbits, deer, and other wild game, might be seen, peering and
playing about, with none to molest them or make them afraid. The tops
of the stately poplars were often covered with the red-winged
black-birds, making all nature vocal with the joyous life and beauty of
their wild, warbling notes. These all belonged to me, as well as to
Col. Edward Lloyd, and for a time I greatly enjoyed them.
A short distance from the great house, were the stately mansions of the
dead, a place of somber aspect. Vast tombs, embowered beneath the
weeping willow and the fir tree, told of the antiquities of the Lloyd
family, as well as of their wealth. Superstition was rife among the
slaves about this family burying ground. Strange sights had been seen
there by some of the older slaves. Shrouded ghosts, riding on great
black horses, had been seen to enter; balls of fire had been seen to
fly there at midnight, and horrid sounds had been repeatedly heard.
Slaves know enough of the rudiments of theology to believe that those
go to hell who die slaveholders; and they often fancy such persons
wishing themselves back again, to wield the lash. Tales of sights and
sounds, strange and terrible, connected with the huge black tombs, were
a very great security to the grounds about them, for few of the slaves
felt like approaching them even in the day time. It was a dark, gloomy
and forbidding place, and it was difficult to feel that the spirits of
the sleeping dust there deposited, reigned with the blest in the realms
of eternal peace.
The business of twenty or thirty farms was transacted at this, called,
by way of eminence, “great house farm.” These farms all belonged to
Col. Lloyd, as did, also, the slaves upon them. Each farm was under the
management of an overseer. As I have said of the overseer of the home
plantation, so I may say of the overseers on the smaller ones; they
stand between the slave and all civil constitutions—their word is law,
and is implicitly obeyed.
The colonel, at this time, was reputed to be, and he apparently was,
very rich. His slaves, alone, were an immense fortune. These, small and
great, could not have been fewer than one thousand in number, and
though scarcely a month passed without the sale of one or more lots to
the Georgia traders, there was no apparent diminution in the number of
his human stock: the home plantation merely groaned at a removal of the
young increase, or human crop, then proceeded as lively as ever.
Horse-shoeing, cart-mending, plow-repairing, coopering, grinding, and
weaving, for all the neighboring farms, were performed here, and slaves
were employed in all these branches. “Uncle Tony” was the blacksmith;
“Uncle Harry” was the cartwright; “Uncle Abel” was the shoemaker; and
all these had hands to assist them in their several departments.
These mechanics were called “uncles” by all the younger slaves, not
because they really sustained that relationship to any, but according
to plantation _etiquette_, as a mark of respect, due from the younger
to the older slaves. Strange, and even ridiculous as it may seem, among
a people so uncultivated, and with so many stern trials to look in the
face, there is not to be found, among any people, a more rigid
enforcement of the law of respect to elders, than they maintain. I set
this down as partly constitutional with my race, and partly
conventional. There is no better material in the world for making a
gentleman, than is furnished in the African. He shows to others, and
exacts for himself, all the tokens of respect which he is compelled to
manifest toward his master. A young slave must approach the company of
the older with hat in hand, and woe betide him, if he fails to
acknowledge a favor, of any sort, with the accustomed _“tank’ee,”_ &c.
So uniformly are good manners enforced among slaves, I can easily
detect a “bogus” fugitive by his manners.
Among other slave notabilities of the plantation, was one called by
everybody Uncle Isaac Copper. It is seldom that a slave gets a surname
from anybody in Maryland; and so completely has the south shaped the
manners of the north, in this respect, that even abolitionists make
very little of the surname of a Negro. The only improvement on the
“Bills,” “Jacks,” “Jims,” and “Neds” of the south, observable here is,
that “William,” “John,” “James,” “Edward,” are substituted. It goes
against the grain to treat and address a Negro precisely as they would
treat and address a white man. But, once in a while, in slavery as in
the free states, by some extraordinary circumstance, the Negro has a
surname fastened to him, and holds it against all conventionalities.
This was the case with Uncle Isaac Copper. When the “uncle” was
dropped, he generally had the prefix “doctor,” in its stead. He was our
doctor of medicine, and doctor of divinity as well. Where he took his
degree I am unable to say, for he was not very communicative to
inferiors, and I was emphatically such, being but a boy seven or eight
years old. He was too well established in his profession to permit
questions as to his native skill, or his attainments. One qualification
he undoubtedly had—he was a confirmed _cripple;_ and he could neither
work, nor would he bring anything if offered for sale in the market.
The old man, though lame, was no sluggard. He was a man that made his
crutches do him good service. He was always on the alert, looking up
the sick, and all such as were supposed to need his counsel. His
remedial prescriptions embraced four articles. For diseases of the
body, _Epsom salts and castor oil;_ for those of the soul, _the Lord’s
Prayer_, and _hickory switches_!
I was not long at Col. Lloyd’s before I was placed under the care of
Doctor Issac Copper. I was sent to him with twenty or thirty other
children, to learn the “Lord’s Prayer.” I found the old gentleman
seated on a huge three-legged oaken stool, armed with several large
hickory switches; and, from his position, he could reach—lame as he
was—any boy in the room. After standing awhile to learn what was
expected of us, the old gentleman, in any other than a devotional tone,
commanded us to kneel down. This done, he commenced telling us to say
everything he said. “Our Father”—this was repeated after him with
promptness and uniformity; “Who art in heaven”—was less promptly and
uniformly repeated; and the old gentleman paused in the prayer, to give
us a short lecture upon the consequences of inattention, both immediate
and future, and especially those more immediate. About these he was
absolutely certain, for he held in his right hand the means of bringing
all his predictions and warnings to pass. On he proceeded with the
prayer; and we with our thick tongues and unskilled ears, followed him
to the best of our ability. This, however, was not sufficient to please
the old gentleman. Everybody, in the south, wants the privilege of
whipping somebody else. Uncle Isaac shared the common passion of his
country, and, therefore, seldom found any means of keeping his
disciples in order short of flogging. “Say everything I say;” and bang
would come the switch on some poor boy’s undevotional head. _“What you
looking at there”—“Stop that pushing”_—and down again would come the
lash.
The whip is all in all. It is supposed to secure obedience to the
slaveholder, and is held as a sovereign remedy among the slaves
themselves, for every form of disobedience, temporal or spiritual.
Slaves, as well as slaveholders, use it with an unsparing hand. Our
devotions at Uncle Isaac’s combined too much of the tragic and comic,
to make them very salutary in a spiritual point of view; and it is due
to truth to say, I was often a truant when the time for attending the
praying and flogging of Doctor Isaac Copper came on.
The windmill under the care of Mr. Kinney, a kind hearted old
Englishman, was to me a source of infinite interest and pleasure. The
old man always seemed pleased when he saw a troop of darkey little
urchins, with their tow-linen shirts fluttering in the breeze,
approaching to view and admire the whirling wings of his wondrous
machine. From the mill we could see other objects of deep interest.
These were, the vessels from St. Michael’s, on their way to Baltimore.
It was a source of much amusement to view the flowing sails and
complicated rigging, as the little crafts dashed by, and to speculate
upon Baltimore, as to the kind and quality of the place. With so many
sources of interest around me, the reader may be prepared to learn that
I began to think very highly of Col. L.‘s plantation. It was just a
place to my boyish taste. There were fish to be caught in the creek, if
one only had a hook and line; and crabs, clams and oysters were to be
caught by wading, digging and raking for them. Here was a field for
industry and enterprise, strongly inviting; and the reader may be
assured that I entered upon it with spirit.
Even the much dreaded old master, whose merciless fiat had brought me
from Tuckahoe, gradually, to my mind, parted with his terrors. Strange
enough, his reverence seemed to take no particular notice of me, nor of
my coming. Instead of leaping out and devouring me, he scarcely seemed
conscious of my presence. The fact is, he was occupied with matters
more weighty and important than either looking after or vexing me. He
probably thought as little of my advent, as he would have thought of
the addition of a single pig to his stock!
As the chief butler on Col. Lloyd’s plantation, his duties were
numerous and perplexing. In almost all important matters he answered in
Col. Lloyd’s stead. The overseers of all the farms were in some sort
under him, and received the law from his mouth. The colonel himself
seldom addressed an overseer, or allowed an overseer to address him.
Old master carried the keys of all store houses; measured out the
allowance for each slave at the end of every month; superintended the
storing of all goods brought to the plantation; dealt out the raw
material to all the handicraftsmen; shipped the grain, tobacco, and all
saleable produce of the plantation to market, and had the general
oversight of the coopers’ shop, wheelwrights’ shop, blacksmiths’ shop,
and shoemakers’ shop. Besides the care of these, he often had business
for the plantation which required him to be absent two and three days.
Thus largely employed, he had little time, and perhaps as little
disposition, to interfere with the children individually. What he was
to Col. Lloyd, he made Aunt Katy to him. When he had anything to say or
do about us, it was said or done in a wholesale manner; disposing of us
in classes or sizes, leaving all minor details to Aunt Katy, a person
of whom the reader has already received no very favorable impression.
Aunt Katy was a woman who never allowed herself to act greatly within
the margin of power granted to her, no matter how broad that authority
might be. Ambitious, ill-tempered and cruel, she found in her present
position an ample field for the exercise of her ill-omened qualities.
She had a strong hold on old master she was considered a first rate
cook, and she really was very industrious. She was, therefore, greatly
favored by old master, and as one mark of his favor, she was the only
mother who was permitted to retain her children around her. Even to
these children she was often fiendish in her brutality. She pursued her
son Phil, one day, in my presence, with a huge butcher knife, and dealt
a blow with its edge which left a shocking gash on his arm, near the
wrist. For this, old master did sharply rebuke her, and threatened that
if she ever should do the like again, he would take the skin off her
back. Cruel, however, as Aunt Katy was to her own children, at times
she was not destitute of maternal feeling, as I often had occasion to
know, in the bitter pinches of hunger I had to endure. Differing from
the practice of Col. Lloyd, old master, instead of allowing so much for
each slave, committed the allowance for all to the care of Aunt Katy,
to be divided after cooking it, amongst us. The allowance, consisting
of coarse corn-meal, was not very abundant—indeed, it was very slender;
and in passing through Aunt Katy’s hands, it was made more slender
still, for some of us. William, Phil and Jerry were her children, and
it is not to accuse her too severely, to allege that she was often
guilty of starving myself and the other children, while she was
literally cramming her own. Want of food was my chief trouble the first
summer at my old master’s. Oysters and clams would do very well, with
an occasional supply of bread, but they soon failed in the absence of
bread. I speak but the simple truth, when I say, I have often been so
pinched with hunger, that I have fought with the dog—“Old Nep”—for the
smallest crumbs that fell from the kitchen table, and have been glad
when I won a single crumb in the combat. Many times have I followed,
with eager step, the waiting-girl when she went out to shake the table
cloth, to get the crumbs and small bones flung out for the cats. The
water, in which meat had been boiled, was as eagerly sought for by me.
It was a great thing to get the privilege of dipping a piece of bread
in such water; and the skin taken from rusty bacon, was a positive
luxury. Nevertheless, I sometimes got full meals and kind words from
sympathizing old slaves, who knew my sufferings, and received the
comforting assurance that I should be a man some day. “Never mind,
honey—better day comin’,” was even then a solace, a cheering
consolation to me in my troubles. Nor were all the kind words I
received from slaves. I had a friend in the parlor, as well, and one to
whom I shall be glad to do justice, before I have finished this part of
my story.
I was not long at old master’s, before I learned that his surname was
Anthony, and that he was generally called “Captain Anthony”—a title
which he probably acquired by sailing a craft in the Chesapeake Bay.
Col. Lloyd’s slaves never called Capt. Anthony “old master,” but always
Capt. Anthony; and _me_ they called “Captain Anthony Fred.” There is
not, probably, in the whole south, a plantation where the English
language is more imperfectly spoken than on Col. Lloyd’s. It is a
mixture of Guinea and everything else you please. At the time of which
I am now writing, there were slaves there who had been brought from the
coast of Africa. They never used the “s” in indication of the
possessive case. “Cap’n Ant’ney Tom,” “Lloyd Bill,” “Aunt Rose Harry,”
means “Captain Anthony’s Tom,” “Lloyd’s Bill,” &c. _“Oo you dem long
to?”_ means, “Whom do you belong to?” _“Oo dem got any peachy?”_ means,
“Have you got any peaches?” I could scarcely understand them when I
first went among them, so broken was their speech; and I am persuaded
that I could not have been dropped anywhere on the globe, where I could
reap less, in the way of knowledge, from my immediate associates, than
on this plantation. Even “MAS’ DANIEL,” by his association with his
father’s slaves, had measurably adopted their dialect and their ideas,
so far as they had ideas to be adopted. The equality of nature is
strongly asserted in childhood, and childhood requires children for
associates. _Color_ makes no difference with a child. Are you a child
with wants, tastes and pursuits common to children, not put on, but
natural? then, were you black as ebony you would be welcome to the
child of alabaster whiteness. The law of compensation holds here, as
well as elsewhere. Mas’ Daniel could not associate with ignorance
without sharing its shade; and he could not give his black playmates
his company, without giving them his intelligence, as well. Without
knowing this, or caring about it, at the time, I, for some cause or
other, spent much of my time with Mas’ Daniel, in preference to
spending it with most of the other boys.
Mas’ Daniel was the youngest son of Col. Lloyd; his older brothers were
Edward and Murray—both grown up, and fine looking men. Edward was
especially esteemed by the children, and by me among the rest; not that
he ever said anything to us or for us, which could be called especially
kind; it was enough for us, that he never looked nor acted scornfully
toward us. There were also three sisters, all married; one to Edward
Winder; a second to Edward Nicholson; a third to Mr. Lownes.
The family of old master consisted of two sons, Andrew and Richard; his
daughter, Lucretia, and her newly married husband, Capt. Auld. This was
the house family. The kitchen family consisted of Aunt Katy, Aunt
Esther, and ten or a dozen children, most of them older than myself.
Capt. Anthony was not considered a rich slaveholder, but was pretty
well off in the world. He owned about thirty _“head”_ of slaves, and
three farms in Tuckahoe. The most valuable part of his property was his
slaves, of whom he could afford to sell one every year. This crop,
therefore, brought him seven or eight hundred dollars a year, besides
his yearly salary, and other revenue from his farms.
The idea of rank and station was rigidly maintained on Col. Lloyd’s
plantation. Our family never visited the great house, and the Lloyds
never came to our home. Equal non-intercourse was observed between
Capt. Anthony’s family and that of Mr. Sevier, the overseer.
Such, kind reader, was the community, and such the place, in which my
earliest and most lasting impressions of slavery, and of slave-life,
were received; of which impressions you will learn more in the coming
chapters of this book.