Chapter 16
There is neither shade nor shelter, tree nor herbage, round our residence, though there is no reason why there should not be; for the climate is delicious, and the swampy borders of the mainland are full of every kind of evergreen--magnolias, live oak (a species of ilex), orange-trees, etc., and trailing shrubs, with varnished leaves, that bind the tawny, rattling sedges together, and make summer bowers for the alligators and snakes which abound and disport themselves here in the hot season.
I am wrong in saying that there are no trees on the island, though there are as bad as none now. They formerly had a great number of magnificent orange-trees, that were all destroyed by an unusually severe winter; there are a few left, however, which bear most excellent oranges....
BUTLER'S ISLAND, January 8th, 1839. DEAREST HARRIET,
The stars are shining like one vast incrustation of diamonds; and though 'tis the 8th of January, I have been out with bare neck and arms, standing on the brink of the Altamaha, and seeking relief from the oppressive heat of the house. I am here, with the children, in the midst of our slaves; and it seems to me, as I look over these wild wastes and waters, as though I were standing on the outer edge of creation. That this is not absolutely the case, however, or that, if it is, civilization in some forms has preceded us hither, is abundantly proved by the sights and sounds of busy traffic, labor, and mechanical industry, which, encountered in this region (still really half a wilderness), produce an impression of the most curiously anomalous existence you can imagine.
Right and left, as the eye follows the broad and brimming surface of this vast body of turbid water, it rests on nothing but low swamp lands, where the rattling sedges, like a tawny forest of reeds, make warm winter shelters for the snakes and alligators, which the summer sun will lure in scores from their lurking-places; or hoary woods, upon whose straggling upper boughs, all hung with gray mosses like disheveled hair, the bald-headed eagle stoops from the sky, and among whose undergrowth of varnished evergreens the mocking-birds, even at this season, keep a resounding jubilee. All this looks wild enough; and as the peculiar orange light of the southern sunset falls upon the scene, I almost expect to see the canoes of the red man shoot from the banks, which were so lately the possession of his race alone. Immediately opposite to me, however (only about a mile distant, the river and a swampy island intervening), lies the little town of Darien, whose white gable-ended warehouses, shining in the sun, recall the presence of the prevailing European race, and we can hear distinctly the sound of the steam which the steamboat at the wharf is letting off.
Upon this island of ours (I think I look a little like Sancho Panza) we enjoy the perpetual monotonous burden of two steam-engines working the rice mills, and instead of red men and canoes, my illustrious self and some prettily built and gaily painted boats, which I take great delight in rowing.
The strangeness of this existence surprises me afresh every hour by its contrast with all my former experiences; and as I sat resting on my oars at the Darien wharf the other evening, watching a huge cotton-raft float down the broad Altamaha, my mind wandered back to my former life--the scenes, the people, the events, the feelings which made up all my former existence; and I felt like the little old woman whose petticoats were cut all round about. "O Lord a mercy! sure this is never I!" But, then, she had a resource in her dog, which I have not; and so I am not quite sure that it is I....
The climate is too warm for me, and I almost doubt its being as wholesome for the children as a colder one. We have now summer heat, tempered in some degree by breezes from the river and the sea, which is only fifteen miles off; but the people of the place complain of the cold, and apologize to me for the chilliness of the weather, which they assure me is quite unusual. I have come home more than once, however, after a walk round the rice banks, with a bad headache, in consequence of the fierce sunshine pouring down upon these swamps, and do not think that I should thrive in such a climate. It is impossible here to take exercise on horseback, which has become almost indispensable to me; and though I have adopted rowing as a substitute I find it both a fatiguing and an inadequate one.
We live here in a very strange manner. The house we inhabit, which was intended merely as the overseer's residence, is inferior in appearance and every decent accommodation to the poorest farm-house in any part of England. Neither cleanliness nor comfort enter into our daily arrangements at all. The little furniture there is in the rooms is of the coarsest and roughest description; and the household services are performed by negroes, who run in and out, generally barefooted, and always filthy both in their clothes and person, to wait upon us at our meals. How I have wished for a decent, tidy, English servant of all work, instead of these begrimed, ignorant, incapable poor creatures, who stumble about round us in zealous hindrance of each other, which they intend for help to us. How thankful I should be if I could substitute for their unsavory proximity while I eat, that of a clean dumb waiter. This unlimited supply of untrained savages, (for that is what they really are) is anything but a luxury to me. Their ignorance, dirt, and stupidity seem to me as intolerable as the unjust laws which condemn them to be ignorant, filthy, and stupid.
The value of this human property is, alas! enormous; and I grieve to think how great is the temptation to perpetuate the system to its owners. Of course I do not see, or at any rate have not yet seen, anything to shock me in the way of positive physical cruelty. The refractory negroes are flogged, I know, but I am told it is a case of rare occurrence; and it is the injustice, and the kind, rather than the severity, of the infliction that is the most odious part of it to me. The people are, I believe, regularly and sufficiently fed and clothed, and they have tolerably good habitations provided for them, nor are they without various small indulgences; but of their moral and intellectual wants no heed whatever is taken, nor are they even recognized as existing, though some of these poor people exhibit intelligence, industry, and activity, which seem to cry aloud for instruction and the means of progress and development. These are probably rare exceptions, though, for the majority of those I see appear to be sunk in the lowest slough of benighted ignorance, and lead a lazy, listless, absolutely animal existence, far more dirty and degraded (though more comfortable, on account of the climate) than that of _your_ lowest and most miserable wild "bog trotters."
I had desired very earnestly to have the opportunity of judging of this matter of slavery for myself; not, of course, that I ever doubted that to keep human beings as slaves was in itself wrong, but I supposed that I might, upon a nearer observation of the system, discover at any rate circumstances of palliation in the condition of the negroes: hitherto, however, this has not been the case with me; the wrong strikes me more forcibly every hour I live here. The theory of human property is more revolting to every sentiment of humanity; and the evil effect of such a state of things _upon the whites_, who inflict the wrong, impresses me as I did not anticipate that it would, with still more force.
The habitual harsh tone of command towards these men and _women_, whose labor is extorted from them without remorse, from youth to age, and whose hopeless existence seems to me sadder than suffering itself, affects me with an intolerable sense of impotent pity for them.... Then, too, the disrepute in which honest and honorable labor is held, by being thus practiced only by a degraded class, is most pernicious.
The negroes here, who see me row and walk hard in the sun, lift heavy burthens, and make various exertions which are supposed to be their peculiar _privilege_ in existence, frequently remonstrate with me, and desire me to call upon them for their services, with the remark, "What for you work, missus! You hab niggers enough to wait upon you!" You may suppose how agreeable such remonstrances are to me.
When I remember, too, that here I see none of the worst features of this system: that the slaves on this estate are not bought and sold, nor let out to hire to other masters; that they are not cruelly starved or barbarously beaten, and that members of one family are not parted from each other for life, and sent to distant plantations in other States,--all which liabilities (besides others, and far worse ones) belong of right, or rather of wrong, to their condition as slaves, and are commonly practiced throughout the southern half of this free country,--I remain appalled at a state of things in which human beings are considered fortunate who are _only_ condemned to dirt, ignorance, unrequited labor, and, what seems to me worst of all, a dead level of general degradation, which God and Nature, by endowing some above others, have manifestly forbidden.
Do you remember your admiration of philanthropy because I blew the dirty nose of a little vagabond in the street with my embroidered handkerchief? I wish you could see me cleansing and washing and poulticing the sick women and babies in the infirmary here; I think you would admit that I have what Beatrice commends Benedict for, "an excellent stomach."
God bless you, dear! I am not well; this slavish sunshine dries up my vitality. I have hardly any time for writing, but shall find it to write to you.
Ever affectionately yours, F. A. B.
BUTLER'S ISLAND, January 20th, 1839. DEAR MRS. JAMESON,
To you who have, besides "swimming in a gondola" (which many of the vulgar do nowadays), paddled in a canoe upon the wild waters of this wild western world, my present abode, savage as it seems to me, might appear comparatively civilized. Certain it is that we are within view of what calls itself a town, and, moreover, from that town I have received an invitation to what calls itself a _cotillon party_! and yet, right and left, stretch the swamps and forests of Georgia, where the red men have scarcely ceased to skulk, and where the rattlesnakes and alligators, who shared the wilderness with them, still lurk in undisturbed possession of the soil, if soil that may be called which is only either muddy water or watery mud, a hardly consolidated sponge of alluvial matter, receiving hourly additions from the turbid current of the Altamaha.
We are here on our plantation, and if you will take a map of North America, and a powerful magnifying-glass, you may perceive the small speck dignified by the title of "Butler's Island," the Barataria where I am now reigning.
Before I say any more upon this subject, however, I wish to thank you for your kind information about my father and sister. I had a letter from her not long ago, but it was written during her tour in Germany, before our poor mother's death, and, of course, contained little of what must be her present thoughts and feelings, and even little indeed by which I could understand what their plans were for the winter; but a long and very interesting account of your friends, the Thuns, whom I should like to know....
How little pleasure you lost, in my opinion, in not proceeding further south in this country! for your perception of beauty would have been almost as much starved as your sense of justice would have been outraged; at least it is so with me. The sky, God's ever blessed storehouse of light and loveliness, is almost my only resource here: for though the wide, brimming waters of this Briareus of a river present a striking object, and the woods, with their curtains of gray moss waving like gigantic cobwebs from every tree, and these magical-looking thickets of varnished evergreens, have a charm, partly real, and partly borrowed from their mere strangeness; yet the absence of all cultivation but these swampy rice-fields, and of all population but these degraded and unfortunate slaves, render a residence here as depressing to the physical as the moral sense of loveliness.
In contemplating the condition of women generally (a favorite subject of speculation with you, I know), it is a pity that you have not an opportunity of seeing the situation of those who are recognized as slaves (all that are such don't wear the collar, you know, nor do all that wear it show it); it is a black chapter, and no _joke_, I can tell you.
You ask after the Sullys, and I am sorry to say that the little I saw or heard of them previous to my leaving Philadelphia was not pleasant. He had had some disagreeable contention with the St. George's Society about the exhibition of his picture of the queen. The dispute ended, I believe, in his painting two; the one for the society, and the other for his own purposes of exhibition, sale or engraving. He spoke with delight of having made your acquaintance, and of some evenings he spent at your house. I think it very probable that he will revisit Europe; and I hope for his sake that he will get to Italy....
F. A. B.
BUTLER'S ISLAND, Georgia, January 30th, 1839. DEAREST EMILY,
I am told that a total change in my opinions upon slavery was anticipated from my residence on a plantation; a statement which only convinces me that one may live in the most intimate relations with one's fellow-creatures, and really know nothing about them after all. On what ground such an idea could be entertained I cannot conceive, or on what part of my character it could be founded, to which (if I do not mistake myself, even more than I am misunderstood by others) injustice is the most revolting species of cruelty.
My dear friend, do not, do not repine, but rather rejoice for your brother's own sake, that wealth is cut off from him at such a source as slavery. [Mr. Fitzhugh had owned West Indian property, which his sister thought had been rendered worthless by the emancipation of the slaves.] It would be better in my mind to beg, and to see one's children beg, than to live by these means, thinking of them as I do....
It seems to me as if the worst result of this system, fraught as it is with bad ones, is the perversion of mind which it appears to engender in those who uphold it. I remember how hard our Saviour pronounced it to be for a rich man to enter into heaven, and as I look round upon these rice-fields, with their population of human beings, each one of whom is valued at so much silver and gold, and listen to the beat of that steam-mill, which I heard commended the other day as a "mint of money," and when I am told that every acre of this property is worth ten per cent. more than any free English land, however valuable, it seems almost impossible to expect that this terrible temptation to injustice should be resisted by any man; but with God all things are possible! and doubtless He weighs the difficulty more mercifully than I can....
Since this letter was begun, we have had a death on the plantation; a poor young fellow was taken off, after a few days' illness, yesterday. The attack was one to which the negroes are very subject, arising from cold and exposure.... We went to his burial, which was a scene I shall not soon forget. His coffin was brought out into the open air, and the negroes from over the whole island assembled around it. One of their preachers (a slave like the rest) gave out the words of a hymn, which they all sang in unison; after which he made an exhortation, and bade us pray, and we all kneeled down on the earth together, while this poor, ignorant slave prayed aloud and spoke incoherently, but fervently enough, of Life and Death and Immortality. We then walked to the grave, the negroes chanting a hymn by the light of pine torches and the uprising of a glorious moon. An old negro, who possessed the rare and forbidden accomplishment of letters, read part of the burial service; and another stood forward and told them the story of the raising of Lazarus. I have no room for comments, and could make none that could convey to you what I felt or how I prayed and cried for those I was praying with....
You know, I did not think my former calling of the stage a very dignified one; I assure you it appears to me magnificent compared with my present avocation of living by the unpaid labor of others, and those others half of them women like myself. There is nothing in the details of the existence of the slaves which mitigates in my opinion the sin of slavery; and this is forced upon me every hour of the day--so painfully to my conscience, that I feel as if my happiness for life would be affected by my involuntary participation in it. Their condition seems to me accursed every way, and only more accursed to those who hold them in it, on whom the wrong they commit reacts frightfully.
Not a few of these slaves know and feel that they are wronged, deplore their condition, and are perfectly aware of its manifold hardships. Those who are not conscious of the robbery of their freedom and their consequent degradation, are sunk in a state of the most brutish ignorance and stupidity; and as for the pretense that their moral and mental losses are made up to them by the secure possession of food and clothing (a thing no moral and intellectual being should utter without a blush), it is utterly false. They are hard worked, poorly clothed, and poorly fed; and when they are sick, cared for only enough to fit them for work again; the only calculation in the mind of an overseer being to draw from their bones and sinews money to furnish his employer's income, and secure him a continuance of his agency.
It is true that on this estate they are allowed some indulgence and some leisure, and are not starved or often ill-treated; but their indulgences and leisure are no more than just tend to keep them in a state of safe acquiescence in their lot, and it does not do that with the brighter and more intelligent among them. There is no attempt made to improve their condition; to teach them decency, order, cleanliness, self-respect; to open their minds or enlighten their understandings: on the contrary, there are express and very severe laws forbidding their education, and every precaution is taken to shut out the light which sooner or later must break into their prison-house.
Dear Emily, if you could imagine how miserable I feel surrounded by people by whose wrong I live! Some few of them are industrious, active, and intelligent; and in their leisure time work hard to procure themselves small comforts and luxuries, which they are allowed to buy. How pitiable it is to think that they are defrauded of the just price of their daily labor, and that stumbling-blocks are put in the way of their progress, instead of its being helped forward! My mind is inexpressibly troubled whenever I think of their minds, souls, or bodies. Their physical condition is far from what it should be, far from what their own exertions could make it, and there is no improving even that without calling in mental and moral influences, a sense of self-respect, a consciousness of responsibility, knowledge of rights to be possessed and duties discharged, advantages employed and trusts answered for; and how are slaves to have any of these? There is no planting even physical improvement but in a moral soil, and the use of the rational faculties is necessary for the fit discharge of the commonest labor. Alas, for our slaves! and alas, alas, for us! I feel half distracted about it, and it is well for you that I have no more space to write on this theme.
God bless you, my dear friend. Pray, as I do, for the end of this evil....
F. A. B.
BUTLER'S ISLAND, GEORGIA, February 8th, 1839.
Your letter of the 10th of November, my dear Lady Dacre, fulfilled its kindly mission without the delay at Butler Place, the anticipation of which did not prevent your making the benevolent effort of writing it. It reached me in safety here, in the very hindermost skirts of civilization, recalling with so much vividness scenes and people so remote and so different from those that now surround me, that it would have been a sad letter to me, even had it not contained the news of Mrs. Sullivan's illness. At any time any suffering of yours would have excited my sincere sympathy; but that your anxiety and distress should spring from such a cause, I can the more readily deplore, from my knowledge of your daughter, which, though too slight for my own gratification, was sufficient to make me aware of her many excellent and admirable qualities. In those books of hers, too, "Tales of a Chaperon," and "Tales of the Peerage and the Peasantry," which since my return to America I have re-read with increased interest, her mind and character reveal themselves very charmingly; and I know those in this remote "other world," as doubtless there are many in England, who, without enjoying my privilege of personal acquaintance with her, would be fellow-mourners with you should any evil befall her. But I shall not admit this apprehension, and I entreat you, my dear Lady Dacre, to add one more to the many kindnesses you have bestowed on me, by letting me know how it fares with your daughter. In the mean time, if she is well enough to receive my greeting, pray remember me most kindly to her, and tell her that from the half-savage banks of the Altamaha, those earnest wishes, which are unspoken prayers, ascend to heaven for her recovery.
You ask after my children.... I am in no hurry to begin _educationeering_; indeed, as regards early instruction, I am a little behind the fervent zeal of the age, having considerably more regard for what may be found in, than what may be put into, a human head; and a more earnest desire that my child should think, even than that she should learn; and I want her to make her own wisdom, rather than take that of any one else (my own wise self not excepted). For fear, however, that you should imagine that I mean to let her grow up "savage," I beg to state that she does know her letters, a study which she prosecutes with me for about a quarter of an hour daily, out of "Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes." I have thought myself to blame, perhaps, for choosing a _work of imagination_ for that elementary study; but the child, like a rational creature, abhors the whole thing most cordially, and when I think what wondrous revelations are flowing to her hourly through those five gates of knowledge, her senses, I am not surprised that she despises and detests the inanimate dead letter of mere bookish lore....
My poor mother's death, which roused me most painfully to the perception of the distance which divides me from all my early friends, has filled my mind with the gloomiest forebodings respecting my father, and my sister's unprotected situation, should anything befall him. The passing away of my kindred, and those who are dear to me, while I, removed to an impassable distance, only hear of their death after a considerable lapse of time, without the consolation of being near them, or even the preparation of hearing they were ill, is a circumstance of inexpressible sadness....
If Macready would give me anything for my play, I would come over, if only for a month, and see my father, whose image in sickness and depression haunts me constantly....
F. A. B.
BUTLER'S ISLAND, February 10th, 1839.
It is only two days, I believe, dearest Harriet, since I finished a long letter to you, but I am yet in your debt by one dated the 30th of November, and being in the mind to pay my owings, I proceed to do so, as honestly as I may....