My Southern Home: Or, the South and Its People

Forty years ago, the escapes of slaves from the South, although numerous, were nevertheless difficult, owing to the large rewards offered for their apprehension, and the easy mo...

I have already said that Dr. Gaines was a man of deep religious feeling, and this interest was not confined to the whites, for he felt that it was the Christian duty to help to...

Dr. Gaines and wife having spent the heated season at the North, travelling for pleasure and seeking information upon the mode of agriculture practised in the free States, retur...

Forty years ago, in the Southern States, superstition held an exalted place with all classes, but more especially with the blacks and uneducated, or poor, whites. This was shown...

The invention of the Whitney cotton gin, nearly fifty years ago, created a wonderful rise in the price of slaves in the cotton States. The value of able-bodied men, fit for fiel...

Immediately after the Rebellion ceased, the freedmen throughout the South, desiring no doubt to be fully satisfied that they were actually free and their own masters, and could...

Ten miles north of the city of St. Louis, in the State of Missouri, forty years ago, on a pleasant plain, sloping off toward a murmuring stream, stood a large frame-house, two s...

The moral and social degradation of the colored population of the Southern States, is attributable to two main causes, their mode of living, and their religion. In treating upon...

Among the causes of that dissatisfaction of the colored people in the South which has produced the exodus therefrom, there is one that lies beneath the surface and is concealed...

During the palmy days of the South, forty years ago, if there was one class more thoroughly despised than another, by the high-born, well-educated Southerner, it was the slave-t...

Spending part of the winter of 1880 in Tennessee, I began the study of the character of the people and their institutions. I soon learned that there existed an intense hatred on...

A young and beautiful lady, closely veiled and attired in black, arrived one morning at “Poplar Farm,” and was shown immediately into a room in the eastern wing, where she remai...

Advice upon the formation of Literary Associations, and total abstinence from all intoxications is needed, and I will give it to you in this chapter. The time for colored men an...

In America, the negro stands alone as a race. He is without mate or fellow in the great family of man. Whatever progress he makes, it must be mainly by his own efforts. This is...

The night was dark, the rain descended in torrents from the black and overhanging clouds, and the thunder, accompanied with vivid flashes of lightning, resounded fearfully, as I...

Cruelty to negroes was not practised in our section. It is true there were some exceptional cases, and some individuals did not take the care of their servants at all times, tha...

Those who recollect the standing of Virginia in days gone by, will be disappointed in her at the present time. The people, both white and black, are poor and proud, all living o...

In the year 1850, there were fifty thousand free colored people in the slave States, the greater number residing in Louisiana, Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, and South Carolina....

Dr. Gaines’ practice being confined to the planters and their negroes, in the neighborhood of “Poplar Farm,” caused his income to be very limited from that source, and consequen...

Profitable and interesting amusements were always needed at the Corners, the nearest place to the “Poplar Farm.” At the tavern, post-office, and the store, all the neighborhood...

The education of the negro in the South is the most important matter that we have to deal with at present, and one that will claim precedence of all other questions for many yea...

While the “peculiar institution” was a great injury to both master and slaves, yet there was considerable truth in the oft-repeated saying that the slave “was happy.” It was ind...

Years ago, when the natural capabilities of the races were more under discussion than now, the negro was always made to appear to greater disadvantage than the rest of mankind....

Union is strength, has long since passed into a proverb. The colored people of the South should at once form associations, combine and make them strong, and live up to them by a...

Norfolk is the place above all others, where the “old-Verginny-never-tire” colored people of the olden time may be found in their purity. Here nearly everybody lives out of door...

Throughout the Southern States, there are still to be found remnants of the old time Africans, who were stolen from their native land and sold in the Savannah, Mobile, and New O...

During the Rebellion and at its close, there was one question that appeared to overshadow all others; this was Negro Equality. While the armies were on the field of battle, this...

In the olden time, ere a blow was struck in the Rebellion, the whites of the South did the thinking, and the blacks did the work; the master planned, and the slave executed. Thi...

The success of the slave-holders in controlling the affairs of the National Government for a long series of years, furnishing a large majority of the Presidents, Speakers of the...