The South-West Volume Ii Part 9

she is your wife." "She my n.i.g.g.e.r too; I pay master five hun'red dollar for her."

Many of the negroes who swarm in the cities are what are called "hired servants." They belong to planters, or others, who, finding them qualified for some occupation in which they cannot afford to employ them, hire them to citizens, as mechanics, cooks, waiters, nurses, &c., and receive the monthly wages for their services. Some steady slaves are permitted to "hire their own time;" that is, to go into town and earn what they can, as porters, labourers, gardeners, or in other ways, and pay a stipulated sum weekly to their owners, which will be regulated according to the supposed value of the slave's labour. Masters, however, who are sufficiently indulgent to allow them to "hire their time," are seldom rigorous in rating their labour very high. But whether the slave earn less or more than the specified sum, he must always pay that, and neither more nor less than that to his master at the close of each week, as the condition of this privilege. Few fail in making up the sum; and generally they earn more, if industrious, which is expended in little luxuries, or laid by in an old rag among the rafters of their houses, till a sufficient sum is thus acc.u.mulated to purchase their freedom. This they are seldom refused, and if a small amount is wanting to reach their value, the master makes it up out of his own purse, or rather, takes no notice of the deficiency. I have never known a planter refuse to aid, by peculiar indulgences, any of his steady and well-disposed slaves, who desired to purchase their freedom. On the contrary, they often endeavour to excite emulation in them to the attainment of this end. This custom of allowing slaves to "hire their time," ensuring the master a certain sum weekly, and the slave a small surplus, is mutually advantageous to both.

The majority of town servants are those who are hired to families by planters, or by those living in town who own more than they have employment for, or who can make more by hiring them out than by keeping them at home. Some families, who possess not an acre of land, but own many slaves, hire them out to different individuals; the wages const.i.tuting their only income, which is often very large. There are indeed few families, however wealthy, whose incomes are not increased by the wages of hired slaves, and there are many poor people, who own one or two slaves, whose hire enables them to live comfortably. From three to five dollars a week is the hire of a female, and seventy-five cents or a dollar a day for a male. Thus, contrary to the opinion at the north, families may have good servants, and yet not own one, if they are unable to buy, or are conscientious upon that ground, though there is not a shade of difference between hiring a slave, where prejudices are concerned, and owning one. Those who think otherwise, and thus compound with conscience, are only making a distinction without a difference.

Northern people, when they come to this country, who dislike either to hire or purchase, often bring free coloured, or white servants (helps) with them. The first soon marry with the free blacks, or become too lofty in their conceptions of things, in contrasting the situation of their fellows around them, with their own, to be retained. The latter, if they are young and pretty, or even old and ugly, a.s.sume the fine lady at once, disdaining to be servants among slaves, and Hymen, in the person of some spruce overseer, soon fulfils their expectations. I have seen but one white servant, or domestic, of either s.e.x, in this country, and this was the body servant of an Englishman who remained a few days in Natchez, during which time, John st.u.r.dily refused to perform a single duty of his station.

The expense of a domestic establishment at the south, would appear very great in the estimation of a New-Englander. A gardener, coachman, nurse, cook, seamstress, and a house-maid, are indispensable. Some of the more fashionable families add footmen, chamber-maids, hostler, an additional nurse, if there be many children, and another seamstress. To each of these officials is generally attached a young neophyte, while one constantly stumbles over useless little negroes scattered all about the house and court-yard. Necessary as custom has made so great a number of servants, there seems to be much less domestic labour performed in a family of five, such perfect "eye-servants" are they, than in a northern family, with only one "maid of all work." There are some Yankee "kitchen girls"--I beg their ladyships' pardon for so styling them--who can do more house-work, and do it better, than three or four negro servants, unless the eye of their mistress is upon them. As nearly all manual labour is performed by slaves, there must be one to each department, and hence originates a state of domestic manners and individual character, which affords an interesting field of contemplation to the severer northerner. The city slaves are distinguished as a cla.s.s, by superior intelligence, acuteness, and deeper moral degradation. A great proportion of them are hired, and, free from restraint in a great degree, compared with their situations under their own masters, or in the country, they soon become corrupted by the vices of the city, and in a.s.sociating indiscriminately with each other, and the refuse of the white population. Soon the vices of the city, divested of their refinement, become their own unmasked. Although they may once have ranked under the first cla.s.s, and possessed the characteristics which designate the decent, well-behaved domestic of the planter, they soon lose their ident.i.ty. There are of course exceptions to these characteristics, as also in the other cla.s.ses. Some of these exceptions have come within my knowledge, of a highly meritorious character.

The third and lowest cla.s.s consists of those slaves, who are termed "field hands."[19] Many of them rank but little higher than the brutes that perish, in the scale of intellect, and they are in general, as a cla.s.s, the last and lowest link in the chain of the human species.

Secluded in the solitude of an extensive plantation, which is their world, beyond whose horizon they know nothing--their walks limited by the "quarters" and the field--their knowledge and information derived from the rude gossip of their fellows, straggling runaways, or house servants, and without seeing a white person except their master or overseer, as they ride over the estate, with whom they seldom hold any conversation--they present the singular feature of African savages, disciplined to subordination, and placed in the heart of a civilized community. Mere change of place will not change the savage. Moral and intellectual culture alone, will elevate him to an equality with his civilized brethren. The African transplanted from the arid soil of Ebo, Sene-Gambia, or Guinea, to the green fields of America, without mental culture, will remain still the wild African, though he may wield his ox-whip, whistle after his plough, and lift his hat, when addressed, like his more civilized fellows. His children, born on the plantation to which he is attached, and suffered to grow up as ignorant as himself, will not be one degree higher in the scale of civilization, than they would have been had they been born in Africa. The next generation will be no higher advanced; and though they may have thrown away the idols of their country, and been taught some vague notions of G.o.d and the Christian religion, they are in almost every sense of the word Africans, as rude, and barbarous, but not so artless, as their untamed brethren beyond the Atlantic. This has been, till within a few years, the general condition of "field hands" in this country, though there have been exceptions on some plantations highly honourable to their proprietors.

Within a few years, gentlemen of intelligence, humanity, and wealth, themselves the owners of great numbers of slaves, have exerted themselves and used their influence in mitigating the condition of this cla.s.s. They commenced a reformation of the old system, whose chief foundation was unyielding rigour, first upon their own plantations. The influence of their example was manifest by the general change which gradually took place on other estates. This reformation is still in progress, and the condition of the plantation slave is now meliorated, so far as policy will admit, while they remain in their present relation. But still they are, and by necessity, always will be, an inferior cla.s.s to the two former. It is now popular to treat slaves with kindness; and those planters who are known to be inhumanly rigorous to their slaves, are scarcely countenanced by the more intelligent and humane portion of the community. Such instances, however, are very rare; but there are unprincipled men everywhere, who will give vent to their ill feelings, and bad pa.s.sions, not with less good-will upon the back of an indented apprentice, than upon that of a purchased slave. Private chapels are now introduced upon most of the plantations of the more wealthy, which are far from any church; Sabbath-schools are inst.i.tuted for the black children, and Bible-cla.s.ses for the parents, which are superintended by the planter, a chaplain, or some of the female members of the family. But with all these aids they are still, as I have remarked, the most degraded cla.s.s of slaves; and they are not only regarded as such by the whites, but by the two other cla.s.ses, who look upon them as infinitely beneath themselves. It is a difficult matter to impress upon their minds moral or religious truths. They generally get hold of some undefined ideas, but they can go no farther. Their minds seem to want the capacity to receive intellectual impressions, nor are they capable of reasoning from the simplest principles, or of a.s.sociating ideas. A native planter, who has had the management of between two and three hundred slaves, since he commenced planting, recently informed me, that if he conveyed an order to any of his "field hands," which contained two ideas, he was sure it would not be followed correctly.

"d.i.c.k," said he to one of them, "go to the carriage-house, and you will find a side-saddle and a man's saddle there. Put one of them on the roan horse; but don't put on the ladies' saddle, mind you." "Yes, master,"

said d.i.c.k, lifting his cap very respectfully, and then posted off to the carriage-house; whence he returned in a few minutes with the roan caparisoned for a lady.

The last idea seems to thrust out the first. I have frequently tried experiments to ascertain how far this was true of them in general, and have convinced myself, that it is very hard for the uneducated, rude field negro to retain more than a single impression at a time. A gentleman, who has been a leading planter for the last twenty years, and who has nearly one hundred slaves, of all ages, told me, that, finding the established catechism too hard for his slaves, he drew one up in ma.n.u.script himself, as simply as he thought it could be done. But a few lessons convinced him that he must make another effort, on a plan still more simple: and he accordingly drew up a series of questions, each containing one idea, and no more; for every question involving two had always puzzled them. Every question he also made a _leading_ one: this he found to be absolutely necessary. "Yet," he observed, "after all my efforts, for many years past, to imbue the minds--not of the children only, but of the parents, who were all included in my list of catechumens--with the plainest rudiments of Christianity, I do not think that I have one on my estate, who comprehends the simplest principle connected with the atonement."

One of these negroes, after a long course of drilling, was asked, "In whose image were you made?" "In de image ob de debil, master," was his prompt reply.

The restrictions upon slaves are very rigorous in law, but not in fact.

They are forbidden to leave their estates without a written "pa.s.s," or some letter or token, whereby it may appear that they are proceeding by authority. This is a wise regulation, to which I have before alluded; and if its spirit was properly entered into by the community, it would be the best means for public security that could be adopted.

Patrols are organized in the several counties and towns, whose duty it is to preserve order, and apprehend all negroes without pa.s.ses. This body of men consists of four or five citizens, unarmed, unless with riding whips, headed by one of their number as captain. They are appointed monthly by a justice of the peace, and authorized to visit negro cabins, "quarters," and all places suspected to contain negroes, or unlawful a.s.semblies of slaves; and all whom they may find strolling about, without a "pa.s.s," they are empowered to punish upon the spot, with "any number of lashes not exceeding fifteen," or take them to prison. They go out on duty once a week in the towns and villages; but it is considered a bore, and performed reluctantly. But there is no deficiency of energy and activity in case of any actual alarm. Soon after the South-Hampton tragedy, during the Christmas holydays, the public mind was excited by a vague rumour that this drama was to be reacted here, as it was known that some of the negroes, supposed to be engaged in it, had been brought out and sold in this state. During this excitement the patrols were very vigilant. On the high roads they were increased to one hundred armed and mounted men. But this alarm was groundless, and very soon subsided.

The fencibles--a volunteer military corps in Natchez, composed of the first young gentlemen of the city, and now commanded by the late chancellor of the state--the best disciplined and finest looking body of men west of the Alleghanies, const.i.tute the military police of that city. They are also the "firemen;" and a more efficient phalanx to battle with a conflagration, cannot be found, even in New-York or Boston. Patrols go out merely to preserve the peace of the neighbourhood from any disturbance from drunken negroes, rather than to guard against insurrectionary movements.

Though the south has little to apprehend from her coloured population, yet many bold plans, indicating great genius in their originators, have been formed by slaves for effecting their freedom. But farther than mere plans, or violent acts, of short continuance, they will hardly be able to advance. The negro is wholly dest.i.tute of courage. He possesses an animal instinct, which impels him, when roused, to the performance of the most savage acts. He is a being of impulse, and cowardice is a principle of his soul, as instinctive as courage in the white man. This may be caused by their condition, and without doubt it is. But whatever may be the cause, the effect exists, and will ever preclude any apprehension of serious evil from any insurrectionary combination of their number. The spirit of insubordination will die as soon as the momentary excitement which produced it has subsided; and negroes never can accomplish any thing of a tragic nature, unless under the influence of extraordinary temporary excitement. The negro has a habitual fear of the white man, which has become a second nature; and this, combined with the fearless contempt of the white man for him, in his belligerent att.i.tude, will operate to prevent any very serious evil resulting from their plans.

A northerner looks upon a band of negroes, as upon so many _men_. But the planter, or southerner, views them in a very different light; and armed only with a hunting whip or walking-cane, he will fearlessly throw himself among a score of them, armed as they may be, and they will instantly flee with terror. There is a peculiar tone of authority, in which an angry master speaks to his slaves, which, while they are subordinate, cowers them, and when they are insubordinate, so strong is the force of habit, it does not lose its effects. The very same cause which enables him to keep in subjection fifty or a hundred negroes on his estate, through the instrumentality of his voice, or mere presence, operates so soon as the momentary intoxication of insurrectionary excitement is over--if it does not check its first exhibition--to bring them into subjection. Nor do I speak unadvisedly or lightly, when I say that a band of insurgent slaves will be more easily intimidated and defeated by half the number of planters, with whips or canes, and their peculiarly authoritative voices, than by an equal number of northern soldiers armed _cap a pie_. Fear, awe, and obedience in relation to his master, are interwoven into the very nature of the slave. They are the main-spring of all his actions; a part and portion of himself, and no extraneous circ.u.mstances can enable him to rise superior to their influence.

I could relate many facts ill.u.s.trative of what I have stated above, respecting the influence of habitual or natural obedience upon the negro. The runaway will sometimes suffer himself to be taken by a white boy not a third of his size. Recently, about midnight, a lady saw, by the light of the moon, a tall negro enter her gallery. She immediately arose, observed him through the window more distinctly as he was peering about with a light step, and satisfied that he was a negro, she threw up the window, and cried "stop, sir! stop!" in the tone of authority peculiar to all who have had any thing to do with negroes. He at first started, and made a motion to run, but on a repet.i.tion of the command he submissively obeyed, and suffered himself to be taken by the lady's coachman, whom she called up--the runaway, as he proved to be, standing till he came and bound him, without moving a limb. This conduct betrayed no uncommon nerve or resolution in the lady, for southern ladies would laugh at the idea of being afraid of a negro. The readiness of the black coachman to arrest his fellow slave, goes far also toward ill.u.s.trating the views which the slaves themselves entertain of their condition. But this is ill.u.s.trated still more forcibly by the following incident. I was sitting, not long since, on the portico of a house in the country, engaged in conversation, when an old negro entered the front gate, leading by the arm a negro boy about sixteen years of age. "Ah," said the gentleman with whom I was talking, "there is my runaway!" The old man approached the steps, which led to the portico, and removing his hat, as usual with slaves on addressing a white person, said, "master, I done bring John home. I cotch him skulkin 'bout in Natchy: I wish master sell him where ol' n.i.g.g.e.r nebber see him more, if he runaway 'gain: he disgrace he family; his ol' mammy cry 'nough 'bout it when she hearn it."

This couple were father and son. A "good negro," in the usual acceptation of the term, feels that there is a kind of disgrace attached to himself and family, if any one of them becomes a runaway.

A negro lad, who had absconded for a few days' play, was apprehended and led by his overseer through the streets on his way home, not long ago, when an old negro wash-woman standing by, exclaimed on seeing him, "La, me! who 'tink he 'gin so young to act bad!" I will relate an instance of their readiness to arrest each other.

"Missus, dere's a runaway back de garden," said hastily a young negress, as a party were sitting down to the tea table of a lady at whose house I was visiting. "Let me go catch him," "let me go missus," said the waiters, and they could hardly be kept in the hall. Permission was given for one to go, who in a few minutes returned, leading up to the hall-door a stout half-naked negro whom he had caught prowling about the premises. "Here de n.i.g.g.e.r, missus," said he exultingly, as though he himself belonged to another race and colour.

Negroes are very sensitive. They are easily excited, and upon no subject so much so perhaps, as religion. They are, particularly the females, of a very religious temperament, strongly inclining to superst.i.tion. Unable to command their feelings, they give vent to the least emotion in the loudest clamours. They are thereby persuaded that they are converted, and apply for admission into the church in great numbers. Many of them are perhaps truly pious. But the religion of most of them is made up of shouting, which is an incontrovertible argument or proof, with them, of conversion. This shouting is not produced generally by the sermon, for few are able to understand a very plain discourse, of which every sentence will contain words wholly incomprehensible to them. But they always listen with great attention, and so they would do were the sermon delivered in any other tongue. A few of the more intelligent and pious negroes, who can understand most of the sermon, perhaps become affected, and unable, like their better disciplined masters, to control their feelings, give vent to them in groans and shouts. Those about them catch the infection, and spread it, till the whole negro portion of the audience in the gallery, becomes affected ostensibly by religious feeling, but really by a kind of animal magnetism, inexplicable and uncontrollable.

The majority of the religious slaves are of the Methodist denomination, some of which sect may be found on every plantation in the country, but few of them are practical Christians. They are apt to consider the name as the thing. But I have met with individual exceptions, which reflect honour upon their race, and which I now recall with pleasure. One of the most touching and eloquent prayers I have ever heard, I recently listened to from the lips of an old negro, (who sometimes preached to his fellow slaves,) as he kneeled by the pallet of a dying African, and commended in an appeal,--which for beautiful simplicity and pathos, is seldom equalled--his departing spirit to his G.o.d.

I have observed that they are seldom influenced by the principles of religion in their individual conduct. Many, who are regarded by their brother Africans as "shining lights," drink ardent spirits freely and without compunction. "Ben, why do you drink whiskey?" I inquired of an old "member," who was very fond of indulging in this favourite southern potation for all cla.s.ses.--"It no sin master--don't de Bible say, what enter into de mouth no defile de man?" This was unanswerable.

I asked another, "why he swore?" "Cause, master, n.i.g.g.e.r no keep de debil down he throat, when oxen so bad."

Negro preaching has obtained here formerly, but the injudicious course taken at the north by those who are friendly to the cause of emanc.i.p.ation, but who do not evince their good feelings in the wisest manner, has led planters to keep a tighter rein upon their slaves. And negro preaching, among the removal of other privileges which they once enjoyed, is now interdicted. It is certainly to be regretted that the steps taken by those who desire to do away slavery, should have militated against their views, through their own unadvised measures, and placed the subject of their philanthropic efforts in a less desirable state than formerly.

The more I see of slavery, the more firmly I am convinced that the interference of our northern friends, in the present state of their information upon the subject, will be more injurious than beneficial to the cause. The physician, like Prince Hohenloe, might as reasonably be expected to heal, with the Atlantic between himself and his patient's pulse, or to use a juster figure, an individual, wholly ignorant of a disease, might as well attempt its cure, as for northerners, however sincere their exertions, or however pure their intentions may be, under existing circ.u.mstances, to meliorate the condition of the coloured population of the south. When the chains of the slave are broken in pieces, it must be by a southern hand--and thousands of southern gentlemen are already extending their arms, ready to strike the blow.

And when experience shall tell them the time is at hand, then,

"Thy chains are broken, Africa, be free!" shall be shouted from the south to the north; and

wind waves Shall waft the tidings to the land of slaves, Proclaim on Guinea's coast, by Gambia's side, As far as Niger rolls his eastern tide, "Thy chains are broken, Africa, be free!"

I will conclude my remarks upon this interesting subject, with some valuable reflections from another pen. "It avails but little to deprecate now," says the able writer whom I quote, "and even to denounce with holy zeal, the iniquity of those who first established the relations of master and slave in the then colonies of Great Britain, but now United States of America. These relations have been sanctioned by law and long usage, and interwoven with the inst.i.tutions of the two countries: they cannot be cancelled at once by any law, founded on justice and equity, which should place at once either or both of the parties in a less advantageous position, than the one which they held when connected by the tie of master and slave. However opposed to slavery in the abstract, and alive to its numerous evils in practice; and with whatever zeal we may advocate emanc.i.p.ation, we ought ever, in this, as in all other kinds of reform, political as well as moral, to act with that wise discretion, which should make the present work a means of future and permanent good. It should be steadily borne in mind, therefore, that immediate, unconditional emanc.i.p.ation, while it is detrimental to the master, does no immediate good to the manumitted slave. It is not the boon, so much as a beginning, a hope, and a promise of future good to the African; it is simply one of the means, a most important and paramount one, indeed, for acquiring the blessings of rational liberty; but it is not the blessing itself. It becomes, therefore, the bounden duty, on every principle of equity and religion, of those who, either of their own free will, or by menaces to the master, give emanc.i.p.ation to the slave, to carry out what they have begun, to realize what they have promised, to fulfil the hopes which they have raised. Failing to do this, and simply content with severing the relations between master and slave, they become, themselves, the most cruel tyrants, the most unjust men. They have hurried on, by their blind zeal, a crisis, which they are either unable, or unwilling, or know not how, to turn to the best account, for the cause of humanity, civilization, and religion.

Previous--and essential preliminaries, to any attempt at emanc.i.p.ation, either by direct advocacy of the measure in particular quarters, or by legislative enactments, where such are const.i.tutional and legal--a full inquiry ought to be inst.i.tuted under the following heads:--

I. The actual condition of the slaves, which will include the kind and amount of labour which they are bound to perform, the treatment which they experience when at work, and the degree of attention paid to their physical wants and moral nature, as to lodging, clothing, food, amus.e.m.e.nts, and instruction.

II. The immediate effects of unconditional emanc.i.p.ation, on the coloured freeman. Under this head should be investigated his capability, under the circ.u.mstances, of providing for himself and family; and of his acting the part of a good neighbour, and a useful, productive citizen.

III. The compatibility of the whites and blacks, the former masters and slaves, and their descendants respectively, living together after emanc.i.p.ation in the same community, with due regard to the feelings, interests, dispositions, and wants of each cla.s.s.

IV. The measures to be adopted for the interests of each, in case of such incompatibility being evident and impossible to be overcome. The first branch of inquiry results favourably to the cause of humanity, as far as the West Indies are concerned. The state of the slave population in the United States is even still more favourable in the main: and if the comparisons inst.i.tuted between the slaves in the islands and the operatives in England, have resulted in favour of the superior comforts of the former, I feel very sure that, when made between the latter and the American slaves, they will exhibit these in a still more advantageous position.

All this, however, while it diminishes the fears of the philanthropist, ought not to relax his efforts for a future and gradual melioration. It simply ill.u.s.trates things as they are, and does not positively show how they should be.

The facts. .h.i.therto collected under the second branch of inquiry, are not encouraging. The third head presents a very unsatisfactory aspect to the friends of emanc.i.p.ation, and of the negro race. The problem has not been solved; or if partially so, it goes to show, that there is an incompatibility between the two races, and that both are sufferers by their sojourn in the same land, even though both should be free nominally, and, in the eye of the law, equal. A glance at the condition of the free states of the union, as they are called, in this respect, exhibits the proofs of this condition of things. And so long as these startling anomalies exist--freedom without its enjoyments, equality without its social privileges--we really do not see how the people of the free states can pretend, with any show of propriety or justice, even had they the power by law and const.i.tution, to meddle with the relations between master and slave, in the slave-holding states. They have the right, which all men ought to have, of discussing freely any and every important question in ethics, jurisprudence, and political economy, but not to give their conclusion a direct and offensive application to those portions of their fellow-citizens or fellow-men, to whom they have not yet furnished a clear and satisfactory example, and rule of conduct in the case specially adverted to.

Still more do the difficulties of the subject increase, if the last branch of inquiry has not been satisfactorily carried out--if the necessity of separation of the two races, be denied; or, if admitted, the means of accomplishing it be opposed and reviled, as either impracticable or unjust. I am myself in favour of emanc.i.p.ation; but this is a conclusion which it seems to us ought to be carried into effect, only after a due consideration of the premises, and with a full knowledge of the remoter consequences, and ability to make these consequences correspond with the claims of justice and peace in the beginning; and the best and permanent interests of the two races, ultimately. Have those who advocate immediate and unconditional emanc.i.p.ation weighed well these several branches of inquiry on this momentous subject? It is to be feared, indeed, by their language and conduct, that they have not. They should beware, while they are denouncing the slave-holder, that they do not themselves incur a still more fearful responsibility, and make themselves answerable for jeoparding, if not actually dissolving, the Union, and encouraging civil, perhaps servile war, with all its horrors and atrocities."

FOOTNOTES:

[19] "Field hands"--"Force"--"Hands"--"People," and "n.i.g.g.e.rs," are terms applied to the purchased labourers of a plantation; but "Slaves"--never.

"Boys" is the general term for the men, and "women," for females. It is common to address a negro forty years of age as "boy." If much older he is called "daddy," or "uncle;" but "mister," or "man"--never. The females, in old age, become "aunty," "granny," or "old lady."

APPENDIX.

NOTE A.--_t.i.tle-page--Mississippi._

Desirous of embodying in the appendix to this work, whatever of an interesting nature relates to the South-west, the author has compiled, princ.i.p.ally from the American Almanac for 1835, the following STATISTICAL TABLES of Mississippi, presenting that growing state in a variety of interesting views:--

MISSISSIPPI.

----------------------------------------------------------------------- Lat.i.tude of Natchez, 31 34' North.

Longitude in degrees 91 24' 42" West.

_h._ _m._ _s._

Longitude in time, 6 5 38.8

Distance from Washington, 1146 miles.