Part 17

A few Sabbaths ago, while standing before a village church in the country, my attention was drawn to a long procession at the extremity of the street, slowly approaching like a troop of wearied pilgrims. There were several gentlemen in company, some of them planters, who gazed upon the singular spectacle with unusual interest. One sooty brown hue was cast over the whole horde, by the sombre colour of their tattered garments, which, combined with the slow pace and fatigued air of most of those who composed it, gave to the whole train a sad and funereal appearance. First came half a dozen boys and girls, with fragments of blankets and ragged pantaloons and frocks, hanging upon, but not covering their glossy limbs. They passed along in high spirits, glad to be once more in a village, after their weary way through the wilderness; capering and practising jokes upon each other, while their even rows of teeth, and the whites of their eyes--the most expressive features in the African physiognomy--were displayed in striking contrast to their ebony skins. These were followed by a tall mulatto, with high cheek-bones, and lean and hungry looks, making rapid inroads into a huge loaf of bread, whose twin brother was secured under his left arm. A woman, very black, very short, and very pursy, who breathed like a porpoise, and whose capacity for rapid movement was equal to that of a puncheon, trudged along behind, evidently endeavouring to come up with the mulatto, as her eye was fixed very resolutely on the spare loaf; but its owner strode forward deliberately and with perfect impunity. She was followed by another female, bearing an infant in her arms, probably born in the wilderness. Close behind her came a covered wagon, from which she had just descended to walk, drawn by two fine horses, and loaded with young negroes, who were permitted to ride and walk alternately on the journey. Behind the wagon, at a long distance, came an old patriarch, at least eighty years of age, bent nearly double with the weight of years and infirmity. By his side moved an old negress, nearly coeval with him, who supported her decrepit form by a staff. They were the venerable progenitors of the children and grandchildren who preceded them. This aged couple, who were at liberty to ride when they chose, in a covered wagon behind them, were followed by a mixed crowd of negroes of all ages, and of both sexes, with and without staff, hatless and bare-footed. The office of the negro's hat is a mere sinecure--they love the warm sun upon their heads--but they like to be well shod, and that with boots, for the lower region of their limbs about the ancles is very sensitive. Behind these came a wretched cart, covered with torn, red-painted canvass, and drawn by a mule and a horse;--Sancho Panza's mule and Rosinante--I mean no insult to the worthy knight or his squire--if coupled together, would have made precisely such a pair. This vehicle contained several invalids, two of whom were reclining on a matrass laid along the bottom. Around it were many young slaves of both sexes, talking and marching along in gleeful mood. Two or three old people followed, one of whom, who walked with both hands grasping a long staff, stopped as he passed us, and with an air of affecting humility, and with his venerable forehead bowed to the earth, addressed us, "hab massas got piece 'bacca' for ol' nigger?" An old gentleman standing by, whose locks were whitened with the snows of sixty winters, having first obtained leave to do so from the owner of the drove, who, mounted on a fine blooded horse, rode carelessly along behind them, gave the old slave all he had about him, which, fortunately for the petitioner, happened to be a large quantity, and for which he appeared extremely grateful. Several other negroes, walking along with vigorous steps, and another white conductor, with a couple of delicately limbed race-horses, enveloped in broidered mantles, and ridden by bright-eyed little mulatto boys, and two or three leashes of hounds, led by a slave, completed the train. They had been seven weeks on the road, through the "nation," as the southern wilderness is here termed--travelling by easy stages, and encamping at night. Old people are seldom seen in these "droves." The young and athletic usually compose them. But as in this instance, the old people are sometimes allowed to come with the younger portion of their families, as a favour; and if sold at all, they are sold with their children, who can take care of them in their old age, which they well do--for negroes have a peculiarly strong affection for the old people of their own colour. Veneration for the aged is one of their strongest characteristics.

Nor are planters indifferent to the comfort of their gray-headed slaves. I have been much affected at beholding many exhibitions of their kindly feeling toward them. They always address them in a mild and pleasant manner--as "Uncle," or "Aunty"--titles as peculiar to the old negro and negress, as "boy" and "girl," to all under forty years of age. Some old Africans are allowed to spend their last years in their houses, without doing any kind of labour; these, if not too infirm, cultivate little patches of ground, on which they raise a few vegetables--for vegetables grow nearly all the year round in this climate--and make a little money to purchase a few extra comforts. They are also always receiving presents from their masters and mistresses, and the negroes on the estate, the latter of whom are extremely desirous of seeing the old people comfortable. A relation of the extra comforts, which some planters allow their slaves, would hardly obtain credit at the north. But you must recollect that southern planters are men--and men of feeling--generous and high minded, and possessing as much of the "milk of human kindness," as the sons of colder climes--although they may have been educated to regard that as right, which a different education has led northerners to consider wrong.

"What can you do with so much tobacco?" said a gentleman--who related the circumstance to me--on hearing a planter, whom he was visiting, give an order to his teamster to bring two hogsheads of tobacco out to the estate from the "Landing." "I purchase it for my negroes; it is a harmless indulgence, which it gives me pleasure to afford them."

"Why are you at the trouble and expense of having high-post bedsteads for your negroes?" said a gentleman from the north, while walking through the handsome "quarters," or village for the slaves, then in progress on a plantation near Natchez--addressing the proprietor.

"To suspend their "bars" from, that they may not be troubled with musquitoes."

"Master, me would like, if you please, a little bit gallery, front my house." "For what, Peter?" "Cause, master, de sun too hot" (an odd reason for a negro to give,) "dat side, and when he rain we no able to keep de door open." "Well, well, when the carpenter gets a little leisure you shall have one." A few weeks after I was at the plantation, and riding past the quarters one Sabbath morning, beheld Peter, his wife, and children, with his old father, all sunning themselves in their new gallery.

"Missus, you promise me a Chrismus gif'." "Well, Jane, there is a new calico frock for you." "It werry pretty, missus," said Jane, eyeing it at a distance without touching it, "but me prefer muslin, if you please; muslin de fashion dis Chrismus." "Very well, Jane, call to-morrow and you shall have a muslin."

These little anecdotes are unimportant in themselves, but they serve to illustrate what I have stated above, of the kindness and indulgence of masters to their slaves. I could add many others, of frequent occurrence; but these are sufficiently numerous for my purpose.

Probably of the two ways of bringing slaves here, that by land is preferable; not only because attended with less expense, but by gradually advancing them into the climate, it in a measure precludes the effect which a sudden transition from one state to the other might produce. All slaves, however, are not brought here by negro traders. Many of the planters prefer going on and purchasing for themselves, for which purpose it is not unusual for them to take on from twenty to forty and fifty thousand dollars, lay the whole out in slaves, and either accompany them through the wilderness themselves on horseback, or engage a conductor. By adopting this method they purchase them at a much greater advantage, than at second-hand from the professional trader, as slaves can be bought for fifty per cent. less there, than after they are once brought into this market. The number of slaves introduced into the south-western market is annually increasing. Last year more than four thousand were brought into the state, one-third of whom were sold in the Natchez market. The prices of slaves vary with the prices of cotton and sugar. At this time, when cotton brings a good price, a good "field hand" cannot be bought for less than eight hundred dollars, if a male; if a female, for six hundred. "Body servants" sell much higher, one thousand dollars being a common price for them. Good mechanics sometimes sell for two thousand dollars, and seldom for less than nine hundred. Coachmen are high, and house servants are worth at all times, from ten to thirty per cent. more than field negroes. The usual price for a good seamstress, or nurse, is from seven hundred to one thousand dollars. Children are valued in proportion to their ages. An infant adds one hundred dollars to the price of the mother; and from infancy the children of the slaves increase in value about one hundred dollars for every three years, until they arrive at mature age. All domestic slaves, or "house servants," which class includes coachmen, nurses, hostlers, gardeners, footmen, cooks, waiting-maids, &c., &c.--all indispensable to the _menage_ of a wealthy planter--are always in great demand, and often sell at the most extravagant prices. Some of these, born and raised in this climate, (acclimated as they are termed,) often sell for eighteen hundred and two thousand dollars apiece, of either sex. But these are exceptions, where the slave possesses some peculiarly valuable trait as a domestic.

Negro traders soon accumulate great wealth, from the immense profit they make on their merchandise. Certainly such a trade demands no trifling consideration. If any of the worshippers of Mammon earn their gold, it is the slave-dealer. One of their number, who is the great southern slave-merchant, and who, for the last fifteen years, has supplied this country with two-thirds of the slaves brought into it, has amassed a fortune of more than a million of dollars by this traffic alone. He is a bachelor, and a man of gentlemanly address, as are many of these merchants, and not the ferocious, Captain Kidd looking fellows, we Yankees have been apt to imagine them. Their admission into society, however, is not recognised. Planters associate with them freely enough, in the way of business, but notice them no farther. A slave trader is, nevertheless, very much like other men. He is to-day a plain farmer, with twenty or thirty slaves, endeavouring to earn a few dollars from worn-out land, in some old "homestead" among the Alleghanies; which, with his slaves, he has inherited from his father. He is in debt, and hears that he can sell his slaves in Mississippi for twice their value in his own state. If there is no harm in selling them to his next neighbour, and coming to Mississippi without them, he feels that there can be no harm--nay, justice to his creditors requires that he should place them in the highest market--in bringing them into this state, and selling them here. He rises in the morning, gathers his slaves, prepares his wagons and horses, takes one or two of his sons, or hires a neighbour, who may add a few of his own to the stock, to accompany him; and, by and by, the caravan moves slowly off toward the south and west. Seven or eight weeks afterward, a drove of negroes, weary and worn, from a long journey, are seen within two or three miles of Natchez, turning from the high road, to pitch their tents upon the green sward, beneath some wide-spreading tree. It is the caravan from the Alleghanies. The ensuing morning a bright array of white tents, and busy men moving among them, excites the attention of the passer-by. The figure of the old Virginia farmer, mingling among his slaves, attracts the notice of a stranger. "Who is that old gentleman?" he inquires of the southerner with whom he is riding in company. "A negro trader," is the reply. This is the first step of the trader. He finds it profitable; and if his inclinations prompt him, he will return home, after selling his slaves, and buy, with ready money, from his neighbours, a few here and a few there, until he has a sufficient number to make another caravan, with which he proceeds a second time to the south-western market. He follows this trade from season to season, and does it conscientiously. He reasons as I have above stated; and if there is no harm in selling the first, there is none in selling the last. This is the metal of which a slave trader is moulded. The humane characteristics of the trade will be, of course, regulated by the tempers and dispositions of the individuals who engage in it.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] "Slavery, at a very early period after the flood, prevailed, perhaps in every region of the globe. In Asia it is practised to this day. The savage nations of Africa have at no period been exempted from it. In Germany, and other countries of Europe, slaves were generally attached to the soil, as in Russia and Poland at the present day. They were generally employed in tending cattle, and in conducting the business of agriculture."--_Tacitus de moribus Germanorum._ "Among the ancient Germans, according to the same author, it was not uncommon for an ardent gamester to stake his personal liberty on a throw of the dice. The latter species of slaves were alone considered as materials of commerce. In England, now so tenacious of the rights of man, a species of slavery, similar to that among the ancient Germans, subsisted even to the end of the sixteenth century, as appears from a commission issued by Queen Elizabeth in 1574. Colliers and salters were not totally emancipated from every vestige of slavery till about the year 1750. Before that period the sons of colliers could follow no business but that of their fathers, nor could they seek employment in any other mines than in those to which they were attached by birth."

_Encyclopedia Britan._

XLIII.

Slaves--Classes--Anecdotes--Negro instruction--Police--Natchez fencibles--Habitual awe of the negro for the white man-- Illustrations--Religious slaves--Negro preaching--General view of slavery and emancipation--Conclusion.

There are properly three distinct classes of slaves in the south. The first, and most intelligent class, is composed of the domestic slaves, or "servants," as they are properly termed, of the planters. Some of these both read and write, and possess a great degree of intelligence: and as the negro, of all the varieties of the human species, is the most imitative, they soon learn the language, and readily adopt the manners, of the family to which they are attached. It is true, they frequently burlesque the latter, and select the high-sounding words of the former for practice--for the negro has an ear for euphony--which they usually misapply, or mis-pronounce.

"Ben, how did you like the sermon to-day?" I once inquired of one, who, for pompous language and high-sounding epithets, was the Johnson of negroes.--"Mighty obligated wid it, master, de 'clusive 'flections werry distructive to de ignorum."

In the more fashionable families, negroes feel it their duty--to show their aristocratic breeding--to ape manners, and to use language, to which the common herd cannot aspire. An aristocratic negro, full of his master's wealth and importance, which he feels to be reflected upon himself, is the most aristocratic personage in existence. He supports his own dignity, and that of his own master, or "_family_," as he phrases it, which he deems inseparable, by a course of conduct befitting coloured gentlemen. Always about the persons of their masters or mistresses, the domestic slaves obtain a better knowledge of the modes of civilized life than they could do in the field, where negroes can rise but little above their original African state. So identified are they with the families in which they have been "raised," and so accurate, but rough, are the copies which they individually present, of their masters, that were all the domestic slaves of several planters' families transferred to Liberia, or Hayti, they would there constitute a by no means inferior state of African society, whose model would be found in Mississippi. Each family would be a faithful copy of that with which it was once connected: and should their former owners visit them in their new home, they would smile at its resemblance to the original. It is from this class that the friends of wisely-regulated emancipation are to seek material for carrying their plans into effect.

The second class is composed of town slaves; which not only includes domestic slaves, in the families of the citizens, but also all negro mechanics, draymen, hostlers, labourers, hucksters, and washwomen, and the heterogeneous multitude of every other occupation, who fill the streets of a busy city--for slaves are trained to every kind of manual labour. The blacksmith, cabinet-maker, carpenter, builder, wheelwright,--all have one or more slaves labouring at their trades. The negro is a third arm to every working man, who can possibly save money enough to purchase one. He is emphatically the "right-hand man" of every man. Even free negroes cannot do without them: some of them own several, to whom they are the severest masters.

"To whom do you belong?" I once inquired of a negro whom I had employed. "There's my master," he replied; pointing to a steady old negro, who had purchased himself, then his wife, and subsequently his three children, by his own manual exertions and persevering industry. He was now the owner of a comfortable house, a piece of land, and two or three slaves, to whom he could add one every three years. It is worthy of remark, and serves to illustrate one of the many singularities characteristic of the race, that the free negro, who "buys his wife's freedom," as they term it, from her master, by paying him her full value, ever afterward considers her in the light of property.

"Thomas, you are a free man," I remarked to one who had purchased himself and wife from his master, by the profits of a poultry yard and vegetable garden, industriously attended to for many years, in his leisure hours and on Sundays. "You are a free man; I suppose you will soon have negroes of your own."

"Hi! Hab one now, master." "Who, Tom?"--"Ol' Sarah, master." "Old Sarah! she is your wife." "She my nigger 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 accumulated 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 constituting 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, assume 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 sex, in this country, and this was the body servant of an Englishman who remained a few days in Natchez, during which time, John sturdily refused to perform a single duty of his station.