American Negro Slavery Part 32

Cabinet makers 8 | ... ... | ... 26 | ...

Upholsterers 1 | ... 1 | ... 10 | ...

Gun, copper and locksmiths 2 | ... 1 | ... 16 | ...

Blacksmiths and horsesh.o.e.rs 40 | ... 4 | ... 51 | ...

Millwrights ... | ... 5 | ... 4 | ...

Boot and shoemakers 6 | ... 17 | ... 30 | ...

Saddle and harness makers 2 | ... 1 | ... 29 | ...

Tailors and cap makers 36 | ... 42 | 6 68 | 6 Butchers 5 | ... 1 | ... 10 | ...

Millers ... | ... 1 | ... 14 | ...

Bakers 39 | ... 1 | ... 35 | 1 Barbers and hairdressers 4 | ... 14 | ... ... | 6 Cigarmakers 5 | ... 1 | ... 10 | ...

Bookbinders 3 | ... ... | ... 10 | ...

Printers 5 | ... ... | ... 65 | ...

Other mechanics [A] 45 | ... 2 | ... 182 | ...

Apprentices 43 | 8 14 | 7 55 | 5 Uncla.s.sified, unskilled laborers 838 | 378 19 | 2 192 | ...

Superannuated 38 | 54 1 | 5 ... | ...

[Footnote A: The slaves and free negroes in this group were designated merely as mechanics. The whites were cla.s.sified as follows: 3 joiners, 1 plumber, 8 gas fitters, 7 bell hangers, 1 paper hanger, 6 carvers and gilders, 9 sail makers, 5 riggers, 1 bottler, 8 sugar makers, 43 engineers, 10 machinists, 6 boilermakers, 7 stone cutters, 4 piano and organ builders, 23 silversmiths, 15 watchmakers, 3 hair braiders, 1 engraver, 1 cutler, 3 molders, 3 pump and block makers, 2 turners, 2 wigmakers, 1 basketmaker, 1 bleacher, 4 dyers, and 4 journeymen.

In addition there were enumerated of whites in non-mechanical employments in which the negroes did not partic.i.p.ate, 7 omnibus drivers and 16 barkeepers.]

On the other hand, although Charleston excelled every other city in the proportion of slaves in its population, free laborers predominated in all the other industrial groups, though but slightly in the cases of the masons and carpenters. The whites, furthermore, heavily outnumbered the free negroes in virtually all the trades but that of barbering which they shunned. Among women workers the free colored ranked first as seamstresses, washerwomen, nurses and cooks, with white women competing strongly in the sewing trades alone. A census of Savannah in the same year shows a similar predominance of whites in all the male trades but that of the barbers, in which there were counted five free negroes, one slave and no whites.[2]

From such statistics two conclusions are clear: first, that the repulsion of the whites was not against manual work but against menial service; second, that the presence of the slaves in the town trades was mainly due to the presence of their fellows as domestics.

[Footnote 2: Joseph Bancroft, _Census of the City of Savannah_ (Savannah, 1848).]

Most of the slave mechanics and out-of-door laborers were the husbands and sons of the cooks and chambermaids, dwelling with them on their masters'

premises, where the back yard with its crooning women and romping vari-colored children was as characteristic a feature as on the plantations. Town slavery, indeed, had a strong tone of domesticity, and the masters were often paternalistically inclined. It was a townsman, for example, who wrote the following to a neighbor: "As my boy Reuben has formed an attachment to one of your girls and wants her for a wife, this is to let you know that I am perfectly willing that he should, with your consent, marry her. His character is good; he is honest, faithful and industrious." The patriarchal relations of the country, however, which depended much upon the isolation of the groups, could hardly prevail in similar degree where the slaves of many masters intermingled. Even for the care of the sick there was doubtless fairly frequent recourse to such establishments as the "Surgical Infirmary for Negroes" at Augusta which advertised its facilities in 1854,[3] though the more common practice, of course, was for slave patients in town as well as country to be nursed at home. A characteristic note in this connection was written by a young Georgia townswoman: "No one is going to church today but myself, as we have a little negro very sick and Mama deems it necessary to remain at home to attend to him."[4]

[Footnote 3: _Southern Business Directory_ (Charleston, 1854), I, 289, advertis.e.m.e.nt. The building was described as having accommodations for fifty or sixty patients. The charge for board, lodging and nursing was $10 per month, and for surgical operations and medical attendance "the usual rates of city practice."]

[Footnote 4: Mary E. Harden to Mrs. Howell Cobb, Athens, Ga., Nov. 13, 1853. MS. in possession of Mrs. A.S. Erwin, Athens, Ga.]

The town regime was not so conducive to lifelong adjustments of masters and slaves except as regards domestic service; for whereas a planter could always expand his operations in response to an increase of his field hands and could usually provide employment at home for any artizan he might produce, a lawyer, a banker or a merchant had little choice but to hire out or sell any slave who proved a superfluity or a misfit in his domestic establishment. On the other hand a building contractor with an expanding business could not await the raising of children but must buy or hire masons and carpenters where he could find them.

Some of the master craftsmen owned their staffs. Thus William Elfe, a Charleston cabinet maker at the close of the colonial period, had t.i.tle to four sawyers, five joiners and a painter, and he managed to keep some of their wives and children in his possession also by having a farm on the further side of the harbor for their residence and employment.[5] William Rouse, a Charleston leather worker who closed his business in 1825 when the supply of tan bark ran short, had for sale four tanners, a currier and seven shoemakers, with, however, no women or children;[6] and the seven slaves of William Brockelbank, a plastering contractor of the same city, sold after his death in 1850, comprised but one woman and no children.[7]

Likewise when the rope walk of Smith, Dorsey and Co. at New Orleans was offered for sale in 1820, fourteen slave operatives were included without mention of their families.[8]

[Footnote 5: MS. account book of William Elfe, in the Charleston Library.]

[Footnote 6: Charleston _City Gazette_, Jan. 5, 1826, advertis.e.m.e.nt.]

[Footnote 7: Charleston _Mercury_, quoted in the Augusta _Chronicle_, Dec.

5, 1850. This news item owed its publication to the "handsome prices"

realized. A plasterer 28 years old brought $2,135; another, 30, $1,805; a third, 24, $1775; a fourth, 24, $1,100; and a fifth, 20, $730.]

[Footnote 8: _Louisiana Advertiser_ (New Orleans), May 13, 1820, advertis.e.m.e.nt.]

Far more frequently such laborers were taken on hire. The following are typical of a mult.i.tude of newspaper advertis.e.m.e.nts: Michael Grantland at Richmond offered "good wages" for the year 1799 by piece or month for six or eight negro coopers.[9] At the same time Edward Rumsey was calling for strong negro men of good character at $100 per year at his iron works in Botetourt County, Virginia, and inviting free laboring men also to take employment with him.[10] In 1808 Daniel Weisinger and Company wanted three or four negro men to work in their factory at Frankfort, Kentucky, saying "they will be taught weaving, and liberal wages will be paid for their services."[11] George W. Evans at Augusta in 1818 "Wanted to hire, eight or ten white or black men for the purpose of cutting wood."[12] A citizen of Charleston in 1821 called for eight good black carpenters on weekly or monthly wages, and in 1825 a blacksmith and wheel-wright of the same city offered to take black apprentices.[13] In many cases whites and blacks worked together in the same employ, as in a boat-building yard on the Flint River in 1836,[14] and in a cotton mill at Athens, Georgia, in 1839.[15]

[Footnote 9: _Virginia Gazette_ (Richmond), Nov. 20, 1798.]

[Footnote 10: Winchester, Va., _Gazette_, Jan. 30, 1799.]

[Footnote 11: The _Palladium_ (Frankfort, Ky.), Dec. 1, 1808.]

[Footnote 12: Augusta, Ga., _Chronicle_, Aug. 1, 1818.]

[Footnote 13: Charleston _City Gazette_, Feb. 22, 1825.]

[Footnote 14: _Federal Union_ (Milledgeville, Ga.), Mch. 18, 1836, reprinted in _Plantation and Frontier_, II, 356.]

[Footnote 15: J.S. Buckingham, _The Slave States of America_ (London, [1842]), II, 112.]

In some cases the lessor of slaves procured an obligation of complete insurance from the lessee. An instance of this was a contract between James Murray of Wilmington in 1743, when he was departing for a sojourn in Scotland, and his neighbor James Hazel. The latter was to take the three negroes Glasgow, Kelso and Berwick for three years at an annual hire of 21 sterling for the lot. If death or flight among them should prevent Hazel from returning any of the slaves at the end of the term he was to reimburse Murray at full value scheduled in the lease, receiving in turn a bill of sale for any runaway. Furthermore if any of the slaves were permanently injured by willful abuse at the hands of Hazel's overseer, Murray was to be paid for the damage.[16] Leases of this type, however, were exceptional.

As a rule the owners appear to have carried all risks except in regard to willful injury, and the courts generally so adjudged it where the contracts of hire had no stipulations in the premises.[17] When the Georgia supreme court awarded the owner a full year's hire of a slave who had died in the midst of his term the decision was complained of as an innovation "signally oppressive to the poorer cla.s.ses of our citizens--the large majority--who are compelled to hire servants."[18]

[Footnote 16: Nina M. Tiffany ed., _Letters of James Murray, Loyalist_ (Boston, 1901), pp. 67-69.]

[Footnote 17: J.D. Wheeler, _The Law of Slavery_ (New York, 1837), pp.

152-155.]

[Footnote 18: Editorial in the _Federal Union_ (Milledgeville, Ga.), Dec.

12, 1854.]

The main supply of slaves for hire was probably comprised of the husbands and sons, and sometimes the daughters, of the cooks and housemaids of the merchants, lawyers and the like whose need of servants was limited but who in many cases made a point of owning their slaves in families. On the other hand, many townsmen whose capital was scant or whose need was temporary used hired slaves even for their kitchen work; and sometimes the filling of the demand involved the transfer of a slave from one town to another. Thus an innkeeper of Clarkesville, a summer resort in the Georgia mountains, published in the distant newspapers of Athens and Augusta in 1838 his offer of liberal wages for a first rate cook.[19] This hiring of domestics brought periodic embarra.s.sments to those who depended upon them. A Virginia clergyman who found his wife and himself doing their own ch.o.r.es "in the interval between the hegira of the old hirelings and the coming of the new"[20] was not alone in his plight. At the same season, a Richmond editor wrote: "The negro hiring days have come, the most woeful of the year! So housekeepers think who do not own their own servants; and even this cla.s.s is but a little better off than the rest, for all darkeydom must have holiday this week, and while their masters and mistresses are making fires and cooking victuals or attending to other menial duties the negroes are promenading the streets decked in their finest clothes."[21] Even the tobacco factories, which were constantly among the largest employers of hired slaves, were closed for lack of laborers from Christmas day until well into January.[22]

[Footnote 19: _Southern Banner_ (Athens, Ga.), June 21, 1838, advertis.e.m.e.nt ordering its own republication in the Augusta _Const.i.tutionalist_.]

[Footnote 20: T.C. Johnson, _Life of Robert L. Dabney_ (Richmond, 1905), p.

120.]

[Footnote 21: Richmond _Whig_, quoted in the _Atlanta Intelligencer_, Jan.

5, 1859.]

[Footnote 22: Robert Russell, _North America_ (Edinburgh, 1857), p. 151.]

That the bargain of hire sometimes involved the consent of more than two parties is suggested by a New Year's colloquy overheard by Robert Russell on a Richmond street: "I was rather amused at the efforts of a market gardener to hire a young woman as a domestic servant. The price her owner put upon her services was not objected to by him, but they could not agree about other terms. The grand obstacle was that she would not consent to work in the garden, even when she had nothing else to do. After taking an hour's walk in another part of town I again met the two at the old bargain.

Stepping towards them, I now learned that she was pleading for other privileges--her friends and favourites must be allowed to visit her.[23]

At length she agreed to go and visit her proposed home and see how things looked." That the scruples of proprietors occasionally prevented the placing of slaves is indicated by a letter of a Georgia woman anent her girl Betty and a free negro woman, Matilda: "I cannot agree for Betty to be hired to Matilda--her character is too bad. I know her of old; she is a drunkard, and is said to be bad in every respect. I would object her being hired to any colored person no matter what their character was; and if she cannot get into a respectable family I had rather she came home, and if she can't work out put her to spinning and weaving. Her relations here beg she may not be permitted to go to Matilda. She would not be worth a cent at the end of the year."[24]

The coordination of demand and supply was facilitated in some towns by brokers. Thus J. de Bellievre of Baton Rouge maintained throughout 1826 a notice in the local _Weekly Messenger_ of "Servants to hire by the day or month," including both artizans and domestics; and in the Nashville city directory of 1860 Van B. Holman advertised his business as an agent for the hiring of negroes as well as for the sale and rental of real estate.

[Footnote 23: _Ibid_.]

[Footnote 24: Letter of Mrs. S.R. Cobb, Cowpens, Ga., Jan. 9 1843, to her daughter-in-law at Athens. MS. in the possession of Mrs. A.S. Erwin, Athens, Ga.]

Slave wages, generally quoted for the year and most frequently for unskilled able-bodied hands, ranged materially higher, of course, in the cotton belt than in the upper South. Women usually brought about half the wages of men, though they were sometimes let merely for the keep of themselves and their children. In middle Georgia the wages of prime men ranged about $100 in the first decade of the nineteenth century, dropped to $60 or $75 during the war of 1812, and then rose to near $150 by 1818. The panic of the next year sent them down again; and in the 'twenties they commonly ranged between $100 and $125. Flush times then raised them in such wise that the contractors digging a ca.n.a.l on the Georgia coast found themselves obliged in 1838 to offer $18 per month together with the customary weekly rations of three and a half pounds of bacon and ten quarts of corn and also the services of a staff physician as a sort of subst.i.tute for life and health insurance.[25] The beginning of the distressful 'forties eased the market so that the town of Milledgeville could get its street gang on a scale of $125;[26] at the middle of the decade slaveowners were willing to take almost any wages offered; and in its final year the Georgia Railroad paid only $70 to $75 for section hands. In 1850, however, this rate leaped to $100 and $110, and caused a partial subst.i.tution of white laborers for the hired slaves;[27] but the brevity of any relief procured by this recourse is suggested by a news item from Chattanooga in 1852 reporting that the commonest labor commanded a dollar a day, that mechanics were all engaged far in advance, that much building was perforce being postponed, and that all persons who might be seeking employment were urged to answer the city's call.[28] By 1854 the continuing advance began to discommode rural employers likewise. A Norfolk newspaper of the time reported that the current wages of $150 for ordinary hands and $225 for the best laborers, together with life insurance for the full value of the slaves, were so high that prudent farmers were curtailing their operations.[29] At the beginning of 1856 the wages in the Virginia tobacco factories advanced some fifteen per cent. over the rates of the preceding year;[30] and shortly afterward several of these establishments took refuge in the employment of white women for their lighter processes.[31] In 1860 there was a culmination of this rise of slave wages throughout the South, contemporaneous with that of their purchase prices. First-rate hands were engaged by the Petersburg tobacco factories at $225;[32] and in northwestern Louisiana the prime field hands in a parcel of slaves hired for the year brought from $300 to $360 each, and a blacksmith $430.[33] The general average then prevalent for prime unskilled slaves, however, was probably not much above two hundred dollars. While the purchase price of slaves was wellnigh quadrupled in the three score years of the nineteenth century, slave wages were little more than doubled, for these were of course controlled not by the fluctuating hopes and fears of what the distant future might bring but by the sober prospect of the work at hand.

[Footnote 25: Advertis.e.m.e.nt in the Savannah newspapers, reprinted in J.S.

Buckingham, _Slave States_ (London, 1842), I, 137.]