lEx HibrtB SEYMOUR DURST When you leave, please leave this book Because it has been said " Sver'ihing comes t' him who waits Except a loaned book. " Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York Library JOURNEYS AND EXPLORATIONS IN THE COTTON KINGDOM OF AMERICA. LONDON : PRIKTED Bi' •n-ILIJAM CLOWES AXD SONS STAMFORD STREET. 23 '21 Asiibf.:'^^ r'»rui/ell anyting else, so he tole me to catch the big gobbler, and tote um down to Washington and see wot um would fotch." Land may be purchased, within twenty miles of Washington, at from ten to twenty dollars an acre. Most of it has been once in cultivation, and, having been exhausted in raising tobacco, has been, for many years, abandoned, and is now covered by a forest growth. Several New Yorkers have lately speculated in the purchase of this soi*t of land, and, as there is a good market for wood, and the soil, by the decay of leaves upon it, and other natural causes, has been restored to moderate fertility, have made money by clearing and im- proving it. By deep ploughing and liming, and the judicious use of manures, it is made quite productive ; and, as equally cheap farms can hardly be found in any free State, in such I proximity to as good markets for agricultural produce, there ' are inducements for a considerable Northern immigration I hither. It may not be long before a majority of the inhabit- l ants will be opposed to slavery, and desire its abolition \Ndthin the district. Indeed, when Mr. Seward proposed in the I Senate to allow them to decide that matter, the advocates of " popular sovereignty " made haste to vote down the motion. ; There are, akeady, more Irish and German labourers and servants than slaves ; and, as many of the objections which free labourers have to going further south, do not operate in Washington, the proportion of white labourers is every year increasing. The majority of servants, however, are now free negroes, which class constitutes one-fiftH of the entire popula- D 2 36 COTTON AND SLAVERY. tion. The slaves are one-fifteentli, but are mostly owned out of the district, and hired annually to those who require their services. In the assessment of taxable property, for 1853, the slaves, owned or hired in the district, were valued at three hundred thousand dollars. The coloured population voluntarily sustain several churches, schools, and mutual assistance and improvement societies, and there are evidently persons among them of no inconsiderable cultivation of mmd. Among the police reports of the City newspapers, there was lately (April, 1855), an accoimt of the apprehension of twenty-four " genteel coloured men " (so they were described), who had been found by a watchman assembling privately in the evening, and been lodged in the w^atch-house. The object of their meeting appears to have been purely benevolent, and, when they were examined before a magistrate in the morning, no evidence was offered, nor does there seem to have been any suspicion that they had any criminal purpose. On searching their persons, there were found a Bible ; a volume of Seneca s Morals ; Life in Ear- nest ; the printed constitution of a society, the object of which was said to be " to relieve the sicJc and hury the dead ;" and a subscription paper to purchase the freedom of Eliza Hoivard, a yomig woman, whom her owner was willing to sell at g 650. I can think of nothing that would speak higher for the character of a body of poor men, servants and labourers, than to find, by chance, in their pockets, just such things as these. And I cannot value that man as a countryman, who does not feel intense humiliation and indignation, when he learns that such men may not be allowed to meet privately together, with such laudable motives, in the capital city of the United States, without being subject to disgraceful punishment. One of the JOUKNEY FROM WASHINGTON. 3T prisoners, a slave named Josepli Jones, was ordered to be flogged ; four others, called in the papers free men, and named John E. Bennett, Chester Taylor, George Lee, and Aquila Barton, were sent to the workhouse ; and the remainder, on paying costs of court, and fines, amounting, in the aggre- gate, to one hundred and eleven dollars, were permitted to range loose again. 38 COTTON AND SLAVERY. CHAPTEK III. VIRGINIA. — GLIMPSES BY RAILROAD. Biehmond, Dec. 16th. — From Washington to Kichmond, Virginia, by the regular great southern route — steamboat on the Potomac to Acquia Creek, and thence direct by rail. The boat makes 55 miles in 3^ hours, including two stoppages (12|- miles an hour) ; fare $2 (3*6 cents a mile). Flat rail; distance, 75 miles ; time 5 J hours (13 miles an hour) ; fare, g3 50 (4| cents a mile). Not more than a third of the country, visible on this route, I should say, is cleared ; the rest mainly a pine forest. Of the cleared land, not more than one quarter seems to have been lately in cultivation ; the rest is grown over with briars and bushes, and a long, coarse grass of no value. But two crops seem to be grown upon the cultivated land — maize and wheat. The last is frequently sown in narrow beds and carefully surface-drained, and is looking remarkably well. A good many old plantation mansions are to be seen; generally standing in a grove of white oaks, upon some hill- top. Most of them are constructed of wood, of two stories, painted white, and have, perhaps, a dozen rude-looking little log-cabins scattered around them, for the slaves. Now and then, there is one of more pretension, with a large porch or gallery in front, like that of Mount Yernon. These are generally in a heavy, compact style ; less often, perhaps, than VIRGINIA. 39 similar establishments at tlie North, in markedly bad, or vulgar taste, but seem in sad need of repah's. The more common sort of habitations of the ^yhite people are either of logs or loosely boarded frames, a brick chimney running up outside, at one end : everything very slovenly and dirty about them. Swine, hounds, and black and white children, are commonly lying very promiscuously together on the ground about the doors. I am struck with the close l3ohabitation and association of black and white — negro women are carrying black and white babies together m their arms ; black and white children are playing together (not going to school together) ; black and white faces are constantly thrust together out of the doors, to see the train go by. A fine-looking, well-dressed, and well-behaved coloured yoimg man sat, together "v\dth a wliite man, on a seat in the cars. I suppose the man was his master ; but he was much the less like a gentleman of the two. The railroad company advertise to take coloured people only in second-class trains ; but servants seem to go with their masters everywhere'. Once, to-day, seeing a lady entering the car at a way-station, mth a femily behind her, and that she was looking about to find c place where they could be seated together, I rose, and oftered her my seat, which had several vacancies roimd it. She accepted it, without thanking me, and immediately installed in it a stout negro woman ; took the adjoining seat herself, and seated the rest of her party before her. It consisted of a white girl, probably her daughter, and a bright and very pretty mulatto girl. They all talked and laughed together ; and the giiis mimched confectionary out of the same paper, with a familiarity and closeness of intimacy that would have been noticed ^^^ith astonishment, if not with mani- fest displeasm'e, in almost any chance company at the North ^ 40 COTTON AND SLAVERY. When the negro is definitely a slave, it would seem that the alleged natural antipathy of the white race to associate with him is lost. I am surprised at the number of fine-looking mulattoes, or nearly white-coloured persons, that I see. The majority of those with whom I have come personally in contact are such. I fancy I see a peculiar expression among these — a contrac- tion of the eyebrows and tightening of the lips — a spying, secretive, and counsel-keeping ixpression. But the great mass, as they are seen at work, under over- seers, in the fields, appear very dull, idiotic, and brute-like ; and it requires an effort to appreciate that they are, very much more than the beasts they drive, our brethren — a part of our- selves. They are very ragged, and the women especially, who work in the field with the men, with no apparent distinc- tion in their labour, disgustingly dirty. They seem to move very awkwardly, slowly, and undecidedly, and almost invari- ably stop their work while the train is passing. One tannery and two or three saw-mills aSbrded the only indications I saw, in seventy-five miles of this old country — settled before any part of Massachusetts — of any industrial occupation other than corn and wheat culture, and fire-wood chopping. At Fredericksburg we passed through the streets of a rather busy, poorly-built town ; but altogether, the countrv seen from the railroad, bore less signs of an active and prospering people than any I ever travelled through before, for an equal distance. Kichmond, at a glance from adjacent high ground, through a dull cloud of bituminous smoke, upon a lowering mnter'f day, has a very picturesque appearance, and I was reminded of the sensation produced by a similar coup d'oeil of Edinburgh. It is somewhat similarly situated upon and among some con- siderable hills; but the moment it is examined at all in vniaiNiA. 41 detail, there is but one spot, in the whole picture, upon which the eye is at all attracted to rest. This is the Capitol, a Grecian edifice, standing alone, and finely placed on open and elevated ground, in the centre of the town. It was built soon after the Kevolution, and the model was obtained by Mr. Jefferson, then [ I Minister to France, fi:om the Maison Carree. ' A considerable part of the town, which contains a population of 28,000, is compactly and somewhat substantially built, but is 1 1 without any pretensions to architectural merit, except in a few modem private mansions. The streets are not paved, and but few of them are provided with side walks other than of earth or gravel. The to^n is lighted with gas, and furnished with excellent water by an aqueduct. On a closer view of the Capitol, a bold deviation from the G-recian model is very noticeable. The southern portico is sustained upon a very high blank wall, and is as inaccessible fi:om the exterior as if it had been intended to fortify the edifice from all ingress other than by scaling-ladders. On coming round to the west side, however, which is without a colonnade, a grand entrance, reached by a heaA^ buttress of stone steps, is found. This incongruity diminishes, in some degree, the usual inconvenience of the G-reek temple for modern public purposes, for it gives speedy access to a small central rotunda, out of which doors open into the legislative halls and offices. If the walling up of the legitimate entrance has caused the impression, in a stranger, that he is being led to a prison or fortress, instead of the place for transacting the public business of a Free State by its chosen paid agents, it is not removed when on approaching this side door, he sees before it an armed sentinel — a meek-looking man in a livery of many colours, embarrassed with a bright-bayoneted firelock, which he hugs gently, as though the cold u-on, this frosfy day, chilled his arm. He belongs to the PubHc Guard of Virginia, I am told ; a 42 COTTON AND SLAVERY. compaay of a hundred men (more or less), enlisted under an Act of the State, passed in 1801, after a rebellion of the coloured people, who, under one General G-abriel," attempted to take the tovm., in hopes to gain the means of seeming their freedom. Having been betrayed by a traitor, as in- sm-gent slaves almost always are, they were met, on their approach, by a large body of well-armed mihtia, hastily called out by the Governor. For this, being armed only mth scythe- blades, they were unprepared, and immediately dispersed. " General Gabriel " and the other leaders, one after another, were captured, tried, and hanged, the militia in strong force guarding them to execution. Since then, a disciplined guard, bearing the warning motto, ^' Sic semrjer tyrannisr has been kept constantly under arms in the Capitol, and no man can enter the legislative temple of Virginia without being reminded that " Eternal vigilance is the price of ." It Wcis not till I had passed the guard, unchallenged, and stood at the door-way, that I perceived that the imposing edihce, as I had thought it at a distance, was nothing but a cheap stuccoed building ; nor would anything short of test by touch have convinced me that the great State of Virginia would have been so long content with such a parsimonious pretence of dignity as is found in imitation gi'anite and imita- tion marble. There is an instance of parsimony, without pretence, in Eichmond, which Euskin himself, if he were a traveller, could not be expected to applaud. The railroad company which brings the traveller from Washington, so far from being open to the criticism of having provided edifices of a style of architectm^e only fitted for palaces, instead of a hall suited to conflicts with hackney-coachmen, actually has no sort of stationary accommodations for them at all, but sets them down, rain or shine, in the middle of one of the main streets. The VIRGINIA. 43 adjoining hncksteries, barbers' shops, and bar-rooms, are evi- dently all the better patronized for this fine simplicity ; but I should doubt if the railroad stock advanced in value by it. Bichmond. — On a Sunday afternoon I met a negro funeral procession, and followed after it to the place of bmial. There was a decent hearse, of the usual style, drawn by two horses ; six hackney coaches followed it, and six well-dressed men, mounted on handsome saddle-horses, and riding them well, rode in the rear of these. Twenty or thirty men and women were also walking together with the procession, on the side walk. Among all there was not a white person. Passing out into the country, a httle beyond the principal cemetery of the city (a neat, rural ground, well filled with monuments and evergreens), the hearse halted at a desolate place, where a dozen coloured people were already engaged heaping the earth over the grave of a child, and singing a wild kind of chant. Another grave was already dug imme- diately adjoining that of the child, both being near the foot of a hill, in a crumbling bank — the ground below being already occupied, and the graves advancing in irregular terraces up the hill-side — an arrangement which facilitated labour. The new comers, setting the coffin — which was neatly made of stained pine — upon the ground, joined in the labour . and the singing, wdth the preceding party, until a small mound of earth was made over the grave of the child. When this was completed, one of those who had been handling a spade, sighed deeply and said — 1 " Lord Jesus, have marcy on us — now! you Jim — you! see ; lyar! you jes lay dat yar shovel cross dat grave — so fash — 'dah — yes, dat's right." A shovel and a hoe-handle having been laid across the unfilled grave, the coffin was brought and laid upon them, a 44 COTTON AND SLAVERY. on a trestle; after whicli, lines were passed under it, by wliich it was lowered to the bottom. Most of the company were of a very poor appearance, rude and un.intelligent, but there were several neatly-dressed and very good-looking men. One of these now stepped to the head of the grave, and, after a few sentences of prayer, held a handkerchief before him as if it were a book, and pronounced a short exhortation, as if he were reading from it. His manner was earnest, and the tone of liis voice solemn and impressive, except that, occasionally, it would break into a shout or kind of howl at the close of a long sentence. I noticed several women near him, weeping, and one sobbing intensely. I was deeply influenced myself by the unaffected feeling, in connection with the simphcity, natm^al, rude truth- fulness, and absence of all attempt at formal decorum in the crowd. I never m my life, however, heard such ludicrous language as was sometimes uttered by the speaker. Frequently I could not guess the idea he was intending to express. Sometimes it was evident that he was tr^dng to repeat phrases that he had heard used before, on similar occasions, but wliich he made absm-d by some interpolation or distortion of a word, thus : " We do not see the end here ! oh no, my friends ! there will be a imtrijication of this body !" the context failing to indicate whether he meant pmification or putrefaction, and leavipg it doubtful if he attached any definite meaning to the word himseK. He quoted from the Bible several times, several times fi'om hymns, always introducing the latter vith In the words of the poet, my brethren ;" he once used the same form, before a verse from the New Testament, and once qualified his citation by saying, " I believe the Bible says that." He concluded by throwing a handful of earth on the coffin, repeating the usual words, sHghtly disarranged, and then took VIRGINIA. 45 a shovel, and, with the aid of six or seven others, proceeded very rapidly to fill the gi'ave. Another man had in the mean time, stepped into the place he had fii'st occupied at the head of the grave ; an old negro, with a very singularly distorted fece, who raised a hymn, which soon hecame a confused chant — ^the leader singing a few words alone, and the company then either repeating them after him or making a response to them, in the manner of sailors heaving at the windlass. I could understand hut very few of the words. The music was wild and barbarous, but not without a plaintive melody. A new leader took the place of the old man, when his breath ' gave out (he had sung very hard, with much bending of the 'body and gesticulation), and continued until the grave was filled, and a mound raised over it. ' A man had, in the mean time, gone into a ravine near by, and now returned with two small branches, hung with withered leaves, that he had broken ofi" a beech tree : these were placed upright, one at the head, the other at the foot of the grave. A few sentences of prayer were then repeated in a low voice by one of the company, and all dispersed. ; No one seemed to notice my presence at all. There were about fifty colom-ed people in the assembly, and but one other white man besides myself. This man lounged against the fence, outside the crowd, an apparently indifferent spectator, and I . judged he was a police ofiicer, or some one procm-ed to vdtness ithe funeral, in compHance with the law which requires that a white man shall always be present at any meeting, for reh- gious exercises, of the negroes. The greater part of the colom-ed people, on Smiday, seemed to be dressed in the cast-off fine clothes of the white people, received, I suppose, as presents, or pm-chased of the Jews, whose shops show that there must be considerable importation of such articles, probably from the North, as there is from 46 COTTON AND SLAVERY. England into Ireland. Indeed, the lowest class, especially among tlie younger, remind me much, by their dress, of the " lads " of Donnybrook ; and when the funeral procession came to its destination, there was a scene precisely like that you may see every day in Sackville Street, DubHn, — a dozen boys in ragged clothes, originally made for tall men, and rather folded round their bodies than worn, striving who should hold the horses of the gentlemen when they dismounted to attend the interment of the body. Many, who had probably come in from the farms near the town, wore clothing of coarse gray "negro-cloth," that appeared as if made by contract, without regard to the size of the particular individual to whom it had been allotted, like penitentiary uniforms. A few had a better suit of coarse blue cloth, expressly made for them evidently, for " Sunday clothes." Some were dressed with foppish extravagance, and many in the latest style of fashion. In what I suppose to be the fashionable streets, there were many more well-dressed and highly-dressed coloui^ed people than white ; and among this daiK gentry the finest French cloths, embroidered waistcoats, patent-leather shoes, resplendent brooches, silk hats, kid gloves, and eau de mille fleurs, were quite common. Nor was the fairer, or rather the softer sex, at aU left in the shade of this splendour. Many of the coloured ladies were dressed not only expen^^ively, but with good taste and effect, after the latest Parisian mode. Some of them were very attractive in appearance, and would have produced a decided sensation in any European drawing-room. Their walk and carriage were more often stylish and graceful. Nearly a fourth part seemed to me to have lost all African peculiarity of feature, and to have acquired, in place of it, a good deal of that voluptuous- ness of expression which characterizes many of the women of the South of Europe. VIEGINIA. 47 There was no indication of their belonging to a subject race, except that they invariably gave the way to the white people they met. Once, when two of them, engaged in conversation and looking at each other, had not noticed his approach, I saw a Virginian gentleman lift his wallving-stick and push a woman aside Avith it. In the evening I saw thi'ee rowdies, arm-in- arm, taking the whole of the sidewalk, hustle a black man off it, giving him a blow, as they passed, that sent him staggering into the middle of the street. As he recovered himself he began to call out to, and threaten them. Perhaps he saw me stop, and thought I should support him, as I was certainly inclined to : " Can't you find anything else to do than to be knockin' quiet people round ! You jus' come back here, will you ? Here, you ! dont care if you is white. You jus' come back here, and I'll teach you how to behave — knockin' people roimd ! — don't care if I does hab to go to der watch-house." They passed on without noticing him fmiher, only laughing jeeringly — and he continued : You come back here, and I'll make you laugh ; you is jus' three white nigger cowards, dat's what you he" I observe, in the newspapers, complaints of growing inso- lence and insubordination among the negi-oes, arising, it is thought, from too many privileges being permitted them by their masters, and from too merciful administration of the poHce laws with regard to them. Except in this instance, however, I have seen not the slightest evidence of any inde- pendent manliness on the part of the negroes towards the whites. As far as I have yet observed, they are treated very kindly and even generously as servants, but their manner to white people is invariably either sullen, jocose, or fawning. The pronunciation and dialect of the negroes, here, is gene- rally much more idiomatic and peculiar than T^ith us. As I 48 COTTON AKD SLA^T21Y. write, I hear a man shouting, slowly and dehberately, meaning to say there: " Dah ! dah ! dah !" xlmong the people you see in the streets, full half, I should think, are more or less of negro blood, and a very decent, ci^il people these seem, in general, to be ; more so than the labouring class of whites, among which there are many very ruffianly-looking fellows. There is a considerable population of foreign origin, generally of the least valuable class ; very dirty German Jews, especially, abound, and their character- istic shops (with their characteristic smells, quite as bad as in Cologne) are thickly set in the narrowest and meanest streets, which seem to be otherwise mhabited mainly by negi'oes. Immense waggons, drawn by six mules each, the teamster always riding on the back of the near- wheeler, are a character- istic feature of the streets. On the canal, a long, nanw- canoe-like boat, perhaps fifty feet long and six wide, and drawing but a foot or two of water, is nearly as common as the ordinary large boats, such as are used on our canals. They come out of some of the small, narrow, crooked streams, connected with the canals, in w^hich a difficult navigation is efiecccd by poleing. They are loaded with tobacco, flour, and a great variety of raw country produce. The canal boatmen seem rude, insolent, and riotous, and every facihty is evidently afforded them, at Eichmond, for indulging then: pecuhar appetites and tastes. A great many low eating, and, I should think, drinking, shops are frequented chiefly by the negroes. Dancinof and other amusements are carried on in these at o night. From reading the comments of Southern statesmen and newspapers on the crime and misery which sometimes result from the accumulation of poor and ignorant people, with no intelligent masters to take care of them, in our Northern towns, one might get the impression that Southern towns — • VIRGINIA. 49 especially those not demoralized by foreign commerce — were comparatively free from a low and licentious population. From what I have seen, however, I am led to think that there is at least as much vice, and of what we call rowdyism, in Kichmond, as in any Northern town of its size. Bichmond. — Yesterday morning, during a cold, sleety storm, against which I was struggling, with my umbrella, to the post-office, I met a comfortably-dressed negro leading three others by a rope ; the first was a middle-aged man ; the second a girl of, perhaps, twenty ; and the last a boy, considerably younger. The arms of all three were secured . before them with hand-cuflfe, and the rope by which they were led passed from one to another ; being made fast at each pair of hand-cuffs. They were thinly clad, the girl especially so, having only an old ragged handkerchief around her neck, over a common calico dress, and another handker- chief twisted around her head. They were dripping wet, and icicles were forming, at the time, on the a^Miing bars. The boy looked most dolefully, and the girl was turning around, with a very angry face, and shouting, " pshaw ! Shut up !" " What are they ?" said I, to a white man, who had also stopped, for a moment, to look at them. " What's he going to do with them ?" " Come in a canal boat, I reckon : sent down here to be sold.— That ar's a Hkely gal." Our ways lay together, and I asked further explanation. He informed me that the negro-dealers had confidential ser- vants always in attendance, on the arrival of the railroad trains and canal packets, to take any negroes that might have come consigned to them, and bring them to their marts. Nearly opposite the post-office was another singular group VOL. I. E 50 COTTON AND SLAVERY. of negroes. They consisted of men and boys, and each carried a coarse, white blanket, drawn together at the comers so as to hold some articles ; probably, extra clothes. They stood in a row, in lomiging attitudes, and some of them, again, were quarrelling, or reproving one another. A villanous-looking white man stood in front of them. Presently, a stout, re- spectable man, dressed in black according to the custom, and without any overcoat or umbrella, but with a large, golden- headed walking-stick, came out of the door of an office, and, without saying a word, walked briskly up the street ; the negi'oes immediately followed, in file ; the other white man bringing up the rear. They were slaves that had been sent into the town to be hired out as servants or factory hands. The gentleman in black was, probably, the broker in the business. Near the post-office, opposite a large livery and sale stable, I turned into a short, broad street, in which were a number of establishments, the signs on which indicated that they were occupied by " Slave Dealers," and that " Slaves, for Sale or to Hhe,"^ere to be foimd within them. They were much like Inielligence Offices, being large rooms partly occupied by ranges of forms, on which sat a few comfortably and neatly clad negroes, who appeared perfectly cheerful, each grinning obsequiously, but vith a manifest interest or anxiety, when I fixed my eye on them for a moment. In Chambers' Journal for October, 1853,* there is an ac- count of the Richmond slave marts, and the manner of con- ducting business in them, to which I shall refer the reader, in lieu of any further narration of my own observations on this subject. (See Appendix B.) I did not myself happen * William Chambers has published the article in a separate form, with some others, under the title of * American Slavery and Colours.' Mr. Russell, of the Times, has given a later case at Montgomery. VIRGmA. 51 to witness, during fourteen months that I spent in the Slave States, any sale of negroes by auction. This must not be taken as an indication that negro auctions are not of frequent occurrence (I did not, so far as I now recollect, witness the sale of anything else, at auction, at the South). I saw negroes advertised to be sold at auction, very frequently. The hotel at which I am staying, " The American," Mil- berger Smith, from New York, proprietor, is an excellent one. I have never, this side the Atlantic, had my comforts provided for better, in my private room, with so little annoyance from the servants. The chamber-servants are negroes, and are accompHshed in their business ; (the dining-room servants are Irish). A man and a woman attend together upon a few assigned rooms, in the hall adjoining which they are con- stantly in waiting ; your bell is answered immediately, your orders are quickly and quietly followed, and your particular personal wants anticipated as much as possible, and provided for, as well as the usual offices performed, when you are out. The man becomes your servant while you are in your room ; he asks, at night, when he comes to request your boots, at what time he shall come in the morning, and then, without being very exactly punctual, he comes quietly in, makes your fire, sets the boots before it, brushes and arranges your clothes, lays out your linen, arranges your dressing gear, asks if you want anything efse of him before breakfast, opens the shutters, and goes off to the next room. I took occasion to speak well of him to my neighbour one day, that I might judge whether I was particularly favoured. " Oh, yes," he said, " Henry was a very good boy, very — valuable servant — quite so — would be worth two thousand dollars, if he was a little younger — easy." At dinner, a venerable locking man asked another — " Niggers are going high now, aint tliey ?" E 2 52 COTTON AND SLAVERY. ''Yes, sir." " Wliat would you consider a fair price for a woman thirty years old, with a young-one two years old ?" Depends altogether on her physical condition, you know. — Has she any other children ?" '' Yes; four:' " Well — I reckon about seven to eight hundred." " I bought one yesterday — gave six hundred and fifty." " Well, sir, if she's tolerable hkely, you did well." This morning I visited a farm, situated on the bank of James Ki^er, near Kichmond. The labour upon it was entirely performed by slaves. I did not inquire their number, but I judged there were from twenty to forty. Their " quarters " Hned the approach-road to the mansion, and were well-made and comfortable log cabins, about thirty feet long by twenty wide, and eight feet wall, with a high loft and shingle roof. Each divided in the middle, and having a brick chimney outside the wall at either end, was intended to be occupied by two families. There were square windows, closed by wooden ports, having a single pane of glass in the centre. The house-servants were neatly dressed, but the field-hands wore very coarse and ragged garments. Dunng the three hours, or more, in which I was in com- pany with the proprietor, I do not think ten consecutive minutes passed uninterrupted by some of the slaves requiiing his personal direction or assistance. He was even obliged, three times, to leave the dinner-table. You see," said he, smiling, as he came in the last time, " a farmer's hfe, in this country, is no sinecure." Then turn- ing the conversation to slavery, he observed, in answer to a remark of mine, " I only wish your philanthropists would con- VrRGDOA. 53 trive some satisfactory plan to relieve us of it ; the trouble and tlie responsibility of properly taking care of our negroes, you may judge, from what you see yourself here, is anything but en\^able. But what can we do that is better ? Our free negroes — and I beheve it is the same at the North as it is here — are a miserable set of vagabonds, drunken, vicious, worse ofl^ it is my honest opinion, than those who are retained in slavery. I am satisfied, too, that our slaves are better off, as they are, than the majority of your free labouring classes at the North." I expressed my doubts. Well, they certainly are better off than the Enghsh agri- cultural labourers, or, I beheve, those of any other Christian country. Free labour might be more profitable to us : I am inchned to think it would be. The slaves are excessively careless and wasteful, and, in various ways — which, without you hved among them, you could hardly be made to understand — subject us to very annoying losses. " To make anything by farming, here, a man has got to live a hard life. You see how constantly I am called upon — and, often, it is about as bad at night as by day. Last ' night I did not sleep a wink till near morning ; I am quite worn out with it, and my wife's health is failing. But I cannot rid j myself of it." I asked why he did not employ an overseer. *' Because I do not think it right to trust to such men as we have to use, if we use any, for overseers." " Is the general character of overseers bad ?" " They are the curse of this country, sir ; the worst men ' in the community. * * * * But lately, I had another sort of fellow offer — a fellow Hke a dancing-master, with kid gloves, and wrist-bands turned up over his t^at-sleeves, and all so nice, that I was almost ashamed to talk to him in my old 54 COTTON AND SLAVERY. coat and slouched hat. Half a bushel of recommendations he had with him, too. Well, he was not the man for me — not half the gentleman, with all his airs, that Ned here is " — (a black servant, who was bursting with suppressed laughter, behind his chair). " Oh, they are interesting creatures, sir," he continued, "and, with all their faults, have many beautiful traits. I can't help being attached to them, and I am sure they love us." In his own case, at least, I did not doubt ; his manner towards them was paternal — familiar and kind ; and they came to him like children who have been given some task, and constantly are wanting to be encouraged and guided, simply and confidently. At dinner, he frequently addressed the servant familiarly, and drew him into our conversation as if he were a family friend, better informed, on some local and domestic points, than himself. I have been visiting a coal-pit : the majority of the mining labourers are slaves, and uncommonly athletic and fine-look- ing i^egroes ; but a considerable number of white hands are also employed, and they occupy all the responsible posts. The slaves are, some of them, owned by the mining company ; but the most are hired of their owners, at from ^120 to ^200 a year, the company boarding and clothing them. (I under- stood that it was customary to give them a certain allowance of money and let them find their own board.) The white hands are mostly English or Welsh. One of them, with whom I conversed, told me that he had been here several years ; he had previously lived some years at the North. He got better wages here than he earned at the North, but he was not contented, and did not intend to remain. On pressing him for the reason of his discontent, he said, after some hesitation, he would rather live where he 1 1 VIRGINIA. 55 r could be more free ; a man had to be too " discreet " here : i if one happened to say anything that gave offence, they I thought no more of drawing a pistol or a knife upon him, than they would of kicking a dog that was in their way. Not long since, a young English fellow came to the pit, and was put to work along with a gang of negroes. One morn- ing, about a week afterwards, twenty or thirty men called on him, and told him that they would allow him fifteen minutes to get out of sight, and if they ever saw him in those parts again they would "give him hell." They were all armed, and there was nothing for the young fellow to do but to move "right off." " What reason did they give him for it ?" *' They did not give him any reason." " But what had he done ?" " Why, I beheve they thought he had been too free with the niggers ; he wasn't used to them, you see, sir, and he talked to 'em free like, and they thought he'd make 'em think too much of themselves." He said the slaves were very well fed, and well treated — not worked over hard. They were employed night and day, in relays. The coal from these beds is of special value for gas manu- facture, and is shipped, for that purpose, to all the large towns on the Atlantic sea-board, even to beyond Boston. It is de- livered to shipping at Kichmond, at fifteen cents a bushel : about thirty bushels go to a ton. Peter shurg. — The train was advertised to leave at 3.30 p.m. At that hour the cars were crowded with passengers, and the engineer, punctually at the minute, gave notice that he was at his post, by a long, loud whistle of tjje locomotive. Five minutes afterwards he gave us an impatient jerk ; ten minutes 56 COTTON AND SLAVEBY. afterwards we advanced three rods ; twelve minutes afterwards, returned to first position: continued, "backing and filling," npon tlie bridge over the rapids of the James river, for half an hour. At precisely four o'clock, crossed the bridge and fairly started for Petersburg. Kan twenty miles in exactly an hour and thirty minutes, (thirteen miles an hour ; mail train, especially recommended by advertisement as " fast"). Brakes on three times, for cattle on the track ; twenty minutes spent at way-stations. Flat rail. Locomotive built at Philadelphia. I am informed that most of those used on the road — perhaps all those of the slow trains — are made at Petersbm-g. At one of the stoppages, smoke was to be seen issuing from the truck of a car. The conductor, on having his attention called to it, nodded his head sagely, took a morsel of tobacco, put his hands in his pocket, looked at the truck as if he would mesmerize it, spat upon it, and then stept upon the platform and shouted, " All right ! Go ahead !" At the next stoppage, the smoking was furious ; conductor bent himself over it with an evidently strong exercise of his will, but not succeeding to tranquilhze the subject at all, he suddenly relinquished the attempt, and, deserting Mesmer for Preisnitz, shouted, " Ho ! boy ! bring me some water here." A negro soon brought a quart of water in a tin vessel. " Hain't got no oil, Columbus ?" " No, sir." " Hum — go ask Mr. Smith for some : this yer's a screaking so, I durstn't go on. You Scott ! get some salt. And loot here, some of you boys, get me some more water. D'ye hear ?" Salt, oil, and water, were crowded into the box, and, aftei five minutes' longer delay, we went on, the truck still smoking, and the water and oil boiling in the box, imtil we reached Petersburg. The heat was the result, I suppose, of a neglect VIRGINIA. 57 of sufficient or timely oiling. WMle waiting, in a carriage, for the driver to get my baggage, I saw a negro oiling all the tracks of the train ; as he proceeded from one to other, he did not give himself the trouble to elevate the outlet of his oiler, so that a stream of oil, costing probably a dollar and a half a gallon, was poured out upon the ground the whole lengih of the train. There were, in the train, two first-class passenger cars, and two freight cars. The latter were occupied by about forty negroes, most of them belonging to traders, who were sending them to the cotton States to be sold. Such kind of evidence of activity in the slave trade of Virginia is to be seen every day ; but particulars and statistics of it are not to be obtained by a stranger here. Most gentlemen of character seem to have a special dismclination to converse on the subject ; and it is denied, with feelmg, that slaves are often reared, as is supposed by the Abolitionists, with the intention of selling them to the traders. It appears to me evident, however, from the manner in which I hear the traffic spoken of incidentally, that the cash value of a slave for sale, above the cost of raising it from infancy to the age at which it commands the ^highest price, is generally considered among the surest elements of a planter's wealth. Such a nigger is worth such a price, and such another is too old to learn to pick cotton, and such another will bring so much, when it has grown a little more, I. have frequently heard people say, in the street, or the public-houses. That a slave woman is commonly esteemed least for her work- ing qualities, most for those qualities which give value to a brood-mare is, also, constantly made apparent.* * A slaveholder writing to me with regard to ifty cautious statements on this subject, made in the Daily Times, says :— In the States of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and ^lissouri, as much attention is paid to the breeding and growth of negroes as to that of horses and mules. Further 58 COTTON AND SLAVERY. By comparing the average decennial ratio of slave increase in all the States with the difference in the number of the actual slave-population of the slave-breeding States, as ascertained by the Census, it is apparent that the number of slaves exported to the cotton States is considerably more than twenty thousand a year.* While calling on a gentleman occupying an honom-able offi- cial position at Eichmond, I noticed upon his table a copy of Professor Johnson's Agricultural Tour in the United States. Eeferring to a paragraph in it, where some statistics of the value of the slaves raised and annually exported from Virginia were given, I asked if he knew how these had been obtained, and whether they were authentic. " No," he replied, " I don't know anything about it ; but if they are anything unfavoui'able to the institution of slavery, you may be sm-e they are false." This is but an illustration, in extreme, of the manner in which I find a desire to obtain more correct but definite information, on the subject of slavery, is usually met, by gentlemen other- wise of enlarged mind and generous qualities. A gentleman, who was a member of the ^' Union Safety Committee" of New York, during the excitement which attended the discussion of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, told me that, as he was passing through Virginia this winter, a man entered the car in which he was seated, leading in a negro girl, whose manner and expression of face indicated dread and grief. Thinking she was a criminal, he asked the man what she had done. South, we raise them both for use and for market. Plantei-s command their girls and women (married or unmarried) to have children ; and I have known a great many negro girls to be sold off, because they did not have children. A breeding woman is worth from one-sixth to one-fourth more than one that does not breed." * Mr. Ellison, in his work, ' Slavery and Secession,' gives the annual importa- tion of negroes, for the ten yeai-s ending 1860, into seven of the Southern Slave States, from the Slave-breeding States, as 26"301. VTRGrNIA. 59 ^'Done? Nothing." " What are you going to do with her ?" " I'm taking her down to Kichmond, to be sold." " Does she belong to you ?" " No ; she belongs to ; he raised her." " Why does he sell her — has she done anything wrong ?" " Done anything ? No : she's no fault, I reckon." " Then, what does he want to sell her for ?" " Sell her for ! Why shouldn't he sell her ? He sells one )r two every year ; wants the money for 'em, I reckon." The irritated tone and severe stare with which this was said, ny friend took as a caution not to pursue his investigation. A gentleman with whom I was conversing on the subject of :he cost of slave labour, in answer to an inquiry — What propor- tion of all the stock of slaves of an old plantation might 36 reckoned upon to do full work ? — answered, that he )wned ninety-six negj'oes ; of these, only thirty-five were ield-hands, the rest being either too young or too old for lard work. He reckoned his whole force as only equal to twenty-one strong men, or prime field-hands." But this proportion was somewhat smaller than usual, he added, because his women were uncommonly good breeders ; lie did aot suppose there was a lot of women anywhere that bred faster :han his ; he never heard of babies coming so fast as they lid on his plantation ; it was perfectly sm^prising ; and every )ne of them, in his estimation, was worth two hundred dollars, IS negroes were selling now, the moment it drew breath." I asked what he thought might be the usual proportion of vorkers to slaves, supported on plantations, throughout the South. On the large cotton and sugar plantations of the nore Southern States, it was very high, he replied ; because heii hands were nearly all bought and picked for worh ; he upposed, on these, it would be about one-half; but, on any 60 COTTON AND SLAVERY. old plantation, where the stock of slaves had heen an inheri- tance, and none had heen bought or sold, he thought the working force would rarely be more than one-third, at most, of the whole number. This gentleman was out of health, and told me, with frankness, that such was the trouble and annoyance his negroes occasioned him — although he had an overseer — and so wearisome did he find the lonely life he led on his plan- tation, that he could not remain upon it ; and as he knew everything would go to the dogs if he did not, he was seriously contemplating to sell out, retaining only his foster- mother and a body servant. He thought of taking them to Louisiana and Texas, for sale ; but, if he should learn that there was much probability that Lower California would be made a Slave State, he supposed it would pay him to wait, as probably, if that should occur, he could take them there and sell them for twice as much as they would now bring in New Orleans. He knew very well, he said, that, as they were, raising corn and tobacco, they were paying nothing at all like a lair interest on their value.* Some of his best hands he now rented out, to work at a furnace, and for the best of these he had been offered, for next year, two hundred dollars. He did not know whether he ought to let them go, though. They were worked hard, and had too much liberty, and were acquiring bad habits. They earned money by overwork, and spent it for whisky, and got a habit of roaming about and taking care of themselves ; because when they were not at work in the furnace, nobody looked out for them. I begin to suspect that the great trouble and anxiety of * Mr. Wise is reported to have stated, in his electioneering tour, when candi- date for Governor, in 1855, that, if slavery were permitted in California, negroes would sell for $ 5,000 apiece. VIRGINIA. 61 Southern gentlemen is : — How, without quite destroying the capabilities of the negro for any work at all, to prevent him from learning to take care of himself. Petersburg, Dee. 2Sth. — It was early on a fine, mild, bright morning, like the pleasantest we ever have in March, that I ahghted from a train of cars, at a country station. Besides the shanty that stood for a station-house, there was a small, comfortable farm-house on the right, and a country store on the left, and around them, perhaps, fifty acres of clear land, now much flooded with muddy water ; — all framed in by thick pine wood. A few negro children, staring as fixedly and posed as life- lessly as if they were really figures " carved in ebony," stood, lay, and lounged on the simny side of the ranks of locomotive- firewood ; a white man, smoking a cigar, looked out of the door of the store, and another, chewing tobacco, leaned against a gate-post in front of the farm-house ; I advanced to the latter, and asked him if I could hii'e a horse in the neigh- bourhood. *' How d'ye do, sir ? " he repHed, spitting and bowing with ceremony; "I have some horses — none on 'em very good ones, though — rather hard riders ; reckon, perhaps, they wouldn't suit you." " Thank you ; do you think I could find anything better about here ?" " Colonel Gillin, over here to the store, 's got a right nice saddle-horse, if he'll let you take her. I'll go over there with you, and see if he wiU Mornin', Colonel ; — here's a gentleman that wants to go to Thomas W.'s : couldn't you let him have your saddle-horse ?" How do you do, sir; I suppose you'd come back to-night ?" " That's my intention ; but I might be detained till to- 62 COTTON AND SLAVEKY. morrow, unless it would be inconvenient to you to spare your horse." " Well, yes, sir, I reckon you can have her ; — Tom ! — Tom ! — Tom / Now, has that devilish nigger gone agaia ? Tom ! Oh, Tom ! saddle the filly for this gentleman. Have you ever been to Mr. W.'s, sir ?" "No, I have not." " It isn't a very easy place for strangers to go to fi'om here ; but I reckon I can direct you, so you'll have no difficulty." He accordingly began to direct me ; but the way appeared so difficult to find, I asked him to let me make a written memorandum, and, from this memorandum, I now repeat the directions he gave me. "You take this road here — you'll see where it's most travelled, and it's easy enough to keep on it fo^ about a mile ; then there's a fork, and you take the right ; pretty soon, you'll cross a creek and turn to the right — the creek's been up a good deal lately, and there's some big trees fallen along there, and if they ha'n't got them out of the way, you may have some difficulty in finding where the road is ; but you k^ep bearing off to the right, where it's the most open (i.e., the wood), and you'll see it again pretty soon. Then you go on, keeping along in the road — you'll see where folks have travelled before — for may be a quarter of a mile, and you'll find a cross road ; you must take that to the left ; pretty soon you'll pass two cabins ; one of 'em's old and all fallen in, the other one's new, and there's a white man lives into it : you can't mistake it. About a hundred yards beyond it, there's a fork, and you take the left — it turns square off, and it's fenced for a good bit ; keep along by the fence, and you can't miss it. It's right straight beyond that tiU you come to a school- house, there's a gate opposite to it, and off there there's a big liouse — but I don't reckon you'll see it neither, for the woods, VIRGINIA. 63 But somewhere, about three hundred yards beyond the school- house, you'll find a little road running off to the left through an old field ; you take that, and in less than half a mile you'll find a path going square off to the right ; you take that, and keep on it till you pass a little cabin in the woods ; ain't nobody Hves there now : then it turns to the left, and when you come to a fence and a gate, you'll see a house there, that's Mr. George Eivers' plantation — it breaks in two, and you take the right, and when you come to the end of the fence, turn the corner — don't keep on, but turn there. Then it's straight, till you come to the creek again — there's a bridge there ; don't go over the bridge, but turn to the left, and keep along nigh the creek, and pretty soon you'll see a meeting- house in the woods ; you go to that, and you'll see a path bearing off to the right — it looks as if it was going right away from the creek, but you take it, and pretty soon it'll bring you to a saw-mill on the creek, up higher a piece ; you just cross the creek there, and you'll find some people at the mill, and they'll put you right straight on the road to Mr. W.'s." " How far is it aU, sir ?" " I reckon it's about two hours' ride, when the roads are good, to the saw-mill. Mr. W.'s gate is only a mile or so beyond that, and then you've got another mile, or 'better, after you get to the gate, but you'll see some nigger-quarters — the niggers belong to Mr. W., and I reckon ther'll be some of 'em round, and they'll show you just where to go." After reading over my memorandum, and finding it correct, and agreeing with him that I should pay two dollars a day for the mare, we walked out, and found her saddled and waiting for me. I remarked that she was very good looking. " Yes, sir ; she ain't a bad filly ; out of a mare that came of Lady Eackett by old Lord-knows-wjio, the best horse we 64 COTTON AND SLAVEKY. ever had in this part of the country : I expect you have heard of him. Oh ! she's maybe a Httle playful, but you'll find her a pleasant riding-horse." The filly was just so pleasantly playful, and full of well- bred life, as to create a joyful, healthy, sympathetic, frohc- some heedlessness in her rider, and, in two hours, we had lost our way, and I was trying to work up a dead reckoning. First, we had picked our way from the store down to the brook, through a deeply corrugated clay-road ; then there was the swamp, with the fallen trees and thick underwood, beaten down and barked in the miry parts by waggons making a road for themselves, no traces of which road could we find in the harder, pebbly ground. At length, 'when we came to drier land, and among pine trees, we discovered a clear way cut through them, and a distinct road before us again ; and this brought us soon to an old clearing, just beginning to be grown over with pines, in which was the old cabin of rotten logs, one or two of them falling out of rank on the door side, and the whole concern having a dangerous lurch to one corner, as if too much whisky had been drunk in it : then a more recent clearing, with a fenced field and another cabin, the residence of the white man we were told of, probably. No white people, however, were to be seen, but two negroes sat in the mouth of a wigwam, husking maize, and a couple of hungry hounds came bounding over the zig-zag, gateless fence, as if they had agreed with each other that they would wait no longer for the return of their master, but would straightway puU down the first traveller that passed, and have something to eat before they were quite famished. They stopped short, however, when they had got within a good cart-whip's length of us, and contented them- selves with dolefully youping as long as we continued in sight. We turned the corner, foUo^dng some shght traces of a road, vniGrN-iA. 65 and shortly afterwards met a curious vehicular establishment, probably belonging to the master of the hounds. It consisted of an axle-tree and wheels, and a pair of shafts made of un- barked saplings, in which was harnessed, by attachments of raw hide and rope, a single small black ox. There was a bit, made of telegraph wire, in his mouth, by which he was guided, through the mediation of a pair of much-knotted rope reins, by a white man — a dignified sovereign, wearing a brimless crown — ^who sat upon a two-bushel sack (of meal, I trust, for the hounds' sake), balanced upon the axle-tree, and who saluted me with a frank " How are you ?" as we came opposite each other. Soon after this, we reached a small grove of much older md larger pines than we had seen before, with long and boiizontally stretching branches, and duller and thinner jfoHage. In the middle of it was another log cabin, with a ioor in one of the gable ends, a stove pipe, half rusted away, orotruding fi-om the other, and, in the middle of one of the ddes, a small square port-hole, closed by a wooden shutter. This must have been the school-house; but there were no Mdi'en then about it, and no appearance of there ha\dng been my lately. Near it was a long string of fence, and a gate and ane, which gave entrance, probably, to a large plantation, hough there was no cultivated land within sight of the oad. I could remember hardly anything after this, except a con- inuation of pine trees, big, httle, and medium in size, and logs, and a black, crooked, bm-nt sapling, that we had made ■eheve was a snake springing at us and had jumped away rom, and then we had gone on at a trot — it must have been ome time ago, that — and then I was paying attentions to ane (the filly's name was Jane Gillan), and fmally my aoughts had gone wool-gathering, and we must have tra- VOL. I. F 66 COTTON AND SLA\^RY. veiled some miles out of our way and — Never mind," said Jane, lifting her head, and turning in the direction we had been going, I don't think it's any great matter if we are lost ; such a fine day — so long since I've been out ; if you don't care, I'd just as lief be lost as not ; let's go on and see what we shall come to.'^ " Very well, my beauty ; you Imow the country better than I do. If you'll risk your dinner, I'm quite ready to go any- where you choose to take me. It's quite certain we have not passed any meeting-house, or creek, or saw-mill, or negro- quarters, and, as we have been two hours on the road, it's evident we are not going straight to Mr. W.'s ; I must see what we do pass after this," and I stood up in the stirrups as we walked on, to see what the country around us was like. " Old fields " — a coarse, yellow, sandy soil, bearing scarcely anything but pine trees and broom-sedge. In some places, for acres, the pines would not be above five feet high — thai was land that had been in cultivation, used up and " turnec out," not more than six or eight years before ; then then were patches of every age ; sometimes the trees were a hun dred feet high. At long intervals, there were fields in whicl the pine was just beginning to spring in beautiful greei plumes from the ground, and was yet hardly noticeabl among the dead brown grass and sassafras bushes and black berry vines, which natui'e first sends to hide the nakedness o the impoverished earth. Of living creatures, for miles, not one was to be seen (nc even a crow or a snow-bird), except hogs. These — lon^ lank, bony, snake-headed, hairy, wild beasts — would com dashing across our path, in packs of from three to a dozei with short, hasty grunts, almost always at a gallop, and lool ing neither to right nor left, as if they were in pursuit of fox, and were quite certain to catch him in the next hundre VTRQINU. 67 yards ; or droves of little pigs would rise np suddenly in the sedge, and scamper off squeaKng into cover, while their heroic mothers would turn round and make a stand, looking fiercely at us, as if they were quite ready to fight if we advanced any farther, but always breaking, as we came near, with a loud hooscli ! Once I saw a house, across a large, new old field, but it was far off, and there was no distinct path leading towards it out of the waggon-track we were followmg ; so we did not go to it, but continued walking steadily on through the old fields and pine woods for more than an hour longer. We then arrived at a gi'ove of tall oak-trees, in the midst of which ran a brook, giving motion to a small grist-mill. Back of the mill were two log cabins, and near these a^ num- ber of negroes, in holiday clothes, were standing in groups among the trees. When we stopped one of them came towards us. He wo.ve a battered old hat, stiffly starched shirt collar, cutting his ears ; a red cravat, and an old black dress coat, threadbare and a little ragged, but adorned with new brass buttons. He knew Mr. Thomas W., cei-tainly he did, and he reckoned I had come about four miles (ha did not know but it might be eight, if I thought so) off the road I had been directed to follow. But that was of no consequence, because he could show me where to go by a straight road — a cross cut — from here, that would make it just as quick for me as if I had gone the way I had intended. " How far is it from here ?" I asked. " Oh, 'tamt far, sar." ''How far do you think?" " Well, massa, I spec — I spec — (looking at my horse) I Bpec, massa, ef you goes de way, sar, dat I show you, sar, I reckon it '11 take you " " How far is it — how many miles ?" p 2 68 COTTON AND SLAVERY. " How many miles, sar ? ha ! masser, I don 'zactly reckon I ken tell ou — not 'cisely, sar — how many miles it is, not zactly, 'cisely, sar." " How is that ?— you don't what ?" " I don't 'zactly reckon I can give you de drection excise about de miles, sar." " Oh ! but how many miles do you think it is ; is it two miles ?" " Yes, sar ; as de roads is now, I tink it is just about two miles. Dey's long ones, dough, I reckon." " Long ones ? you think it's more than two miles, don't you, then ?" " Yes, sar, I leckon it's four or five miles." " Eour or five ! four or five long ones or short ones, do you mean ?" " I don 'zactly know, sar, wedder dey is short ones or long ones, sar, but I reckon you find em middlin' long ; I spec youll be about two hours 'fore you be done gone all the way to Mass W.'s." He walked on with us a few rods upon a narrow path, until we came to a crossing of the stream ; pointing to where it continued on the other side, he assured me that it went right straight to Mr. W.'s plantation. " You juss keep de straight road, massar," he repeated several times, /' and it'll take yon right dar, sar." He had been grinning and bovdng, and constantly touching his hat, or holding it in his hand during our conversation, which I understood to mean, that he would thank me for a dime. I gave it to him, upon which he repeated his contor- tions and his form of dii^ection — " Keep de straight road." I rode through the brook, and he called out again — " You keep dat road right straight, and it'll take you right straight dar." I rode up the bank and entered the oak wood, and VIRGIXIA. 69 still again heard him enjoining me to " keep dat road right straight." Within less than a quarter of a mile there was a fork in the road to the left, which seemed a good deal more travelled than the straight one ; nevertheless I kept the latter, and was soon well satisfied that I had done so. It presently led me up a slope out of the oak woods into a dark evergreen forest ; and though it was a mere bridle-path, it must have existed, I thought, before the trees began to grow, for it was free of stumps, and smooth and clean as a garden walk, and the pines grew thickly up, about four feet apart, on each side of it, their branches meeting, just clear of my head, and making a dense shade. There was an agreeable, slightly balsamic odour in the air ; the path was covered with a deep, elastic mat of pine leaves, so that om- footstep could, hardly be heard ; and for a time we greatly enjoyed going along at a lazy, pacing walk of Jane's. It was noon-day, and had been rather warmer than was quite agreeable on the open road, and I took my hat off, and let the li\dng pine leaves brush my hair. But, after a while, I felt slightly chilly ; and when Jane, at the same time, gave a little sjTnpathizing caper, I bent my head down, that the limbs might not hit me, until it nearly rested on her neck, dropped my hands and pressed my knees tightly against her. Away we bounded ! A glorious gallop J ane had inherited from her noble grand- father ! Out of the cool dark-green alley, at last, and soon, vdih. a more cautious step, down a steep, stony declivity, set with deciduous trees — beech, ash, oak, gmn — "gum," beloved af the " minstrels." A brawling shallow brook at the bottom, into which om- path descended, though on the opposite shore was a steep high bank, faced by an impenetrable brake of bush and brier. 70 COTTON AND SLAVERY. Have we been foUowing a path only leading to a watering- place, then ? I see no continuance of it. Jane does not hesitate at all ; but, as if it was the commonest thing here to take advantage of nature's engineering in this way, walking into the water, turns her head up stream. For more than a mile we continued following up the brook, which was all the time walled in by insurmountable banks, overhung by large trees. Sometimes it swept strongly through a deep channel, contracted by boulders ; sometimes purled and tinkled over a pebbly slope ; and sometimes stood in broad, silent pools, around the edges of which remained a skirt of ice, held there by bushes and long broken water- grasses. At length came pine woods again. Jane was now for leaving the brook. I let her have her own way, and she soon found a beaten track in the woods. It certainly was not the "straight road" we had been directed to follow; but its course was less crooked than that of the brook, and after some time it led us out into a more open country, with young pires and enclosed fields. Eventually we came to a gate and lane, which we followed till we came to another cross-lane leading straight to a farm-house. As soon as we turned into the cross-lane, half a dozen little negro boys and girls were seen running toward the house, to give alarm. We passed a stable, with a cattle-pen by its side, oppooite which was a vegetable garden, enclosed with split palings ; then across a running stream of water ; then by a small cabin on the right ; and a corn-crib and large pen, with a number of fatting hogs in it, on the left ; then into a large, irregular yard, in the midst of which was the farm-house, before which were now collected three white children, six black ones, two negro women, and an old lady wearing Bpectacles. VIRGINIA. 71 How dy do, sir ?" said the old lady, as we reined up, lifted our hat, and put our black foot foremost. Thank you, madam, quite well ; but I have lost my way to Mr. Thomas W.'s, and will trouble you to tell me how to go from here to get to his house." By this time a black man came cautiously walking in from the field back of the house, bringing an axe ; a woman, who had been washing clothes in the brook, left her work and came up on the other side, and two more girls climbed up on to a heap of logs that had been thrown upon the ground, near the porch, for fuel. The swine were making a great noise in their pen, as if feeding-time had come ; and a flock of turkeys were gobbHng so incessantly and loudly that I was not heard. The old lady ordered the tm-keys to be driven away, but nobody stirred to do it, and I rode nearer and repeated my request. No better success. Can't you shew away them turkeys?" she asked again; but no- body "shewed." A third time I endeavoured to make myself understood. Will you please direct me how to go to Mr. W.'s ?" " No, sir — not here." " Excuse me — I asked if you would direct me to Mr. W.'s." If some of you niggers don't shew them turkeys, I'll have you all whipped as soon as your mass John comes home," exclaimed the old lady, now quite excited. The man with the axe, without moving towards them at all, picked up a biUet of wood, and threw it at the biggest cock-turkey, who immediately collapsed ; and the whole flock scattered, chased by the two girls who had been on the log-heap. " An't dat Colonel Gillin's mare, master ?" asked the black man, coming up on my left. " You want to go to Thomas W.'s ?" asked the old lady. "Yes, madam." I 72 COTTON AXD SLAVERY. " It's a good many years since I have been to Thomas W.'s, and I reckon I can't tell you how to go there now." " If master 'U go over to Missy Abler's, I reckon dey ken teU 'em dah, sar." " And how shaU I go to Mrs. Abler's ?" "You want to go to Missy Abler's ; you take dat path right over 'yond dem bars, dar, by de hog-pen, dat runs along by dat fence into de woods, and dat '11 take you right straight dar." " Is you come from Colonel GiUin's, massa ?" asked the wash-woman. "Yes." " Did you see a black man dar, dey caUs Tom, sar ?" "Yes." " Tom's my husband, massa ; if you's gwine back dah, wish you'd teU um, ef you please, sar, dat I want^ to see him partiklar ; wiU ou, massa ?" "Yes." " Tank you, massa." I bowed to the old lady, and, in turning to ride off, saw two other negro boys who had come out of the woods, and were now leaning over the fence, and staring at us, as if I were a giant and Jane was a dragoness. We trotted away, found the path, and in com-se of a mile had our choice of at least twenty forks to go " straight to Mrs. Abler's." At length, cleared land agam, fences, stubble- fields and a lane, that took us to a Httle cabin, which fronted, much to my surprise, upon a broad and weU- travelled road. Over the door of the cabin was a sign, done in black, upon a hogshead stave, showing that it was a " Geosery," which, in Virginia, means the same thing as in Ireland — a dram-shop. I himg the bridle over a rack before the door, and walked in. At one end of the interior was a range of shelves, on which were two decanters, some dnty tumblers, a box of VIEGIXIA. 73 crackers, a canister, and several packages in paper ; under the shelves a table and a barrel. At the other end of the room ■was a fire-place ; near this, a chest, and another range of shelves, on which stood plates and cooking utensils : between these and the groceiy end were a bed and a spinning-wheel. Xear the spinning-wheel sat a tall, bony, sickly, sullen young woman, nursing a languishing infant. The faculty would ' not have discom-aged either of them from ti-j^ng hydropathic practice. In a comer of the fii'e-place sat a man, smoking a pipe. He rose, as I entered, walked across to the grocery- shelves, turned a chair round at the table, and asked me to take a seat. I excused myself, and requested him to direct me to Mr. W.'s. He had heard of such a man living some- where about there, but he did not know where. He repeated this, with an oath, when I dechned to " take " anything, and added, that he had not Hved here long, and he was sorry he had ever come here. It was the worst job, for himself, ever he did, when he came here, though all he wanted was to just get a hving. I rode on till I came to another house, a very pleasant httle house, vdih. a steep, gabled roof, cm'ving at the bottom, and extending over a little gallery, which was entered, by steps, from the road; back of it were stables and -negro- cabins, and by its side was a small garden, and beyond that a peach-orchard. As I approached it, a well-dressed young man, with an intelligent and pleasant face, came out into the gallery. I asked him if he could direct me to 'Mi\ W.'s. " Thomas W.'s ?" he inquii'ed. |t| "Yes, sir." " You are not going in the right direction to go to ]\Ii\ W.'s. The shortest way you can take to go there is, to go right back to the Court House." I told him I had just come out of the lane by the grocery 74 COTTON A^^) SLAVERY. on to the road. " All ! well, I'll tell you ; you had better turn round, and keep right straight upon this road till yon get to the Court House, and anybody can tell you, there, how to go." " How far is it, sir ?'* To the Court House ? — not above a mile." "And to Mr. W.'s ?" "To Mr. W.'s, I should think it was as much as ten miles, and long ones, too." I rode to the Coui't House, which was a plain brick build- ing in the centre of a small square, around which there were twenty or thirty houses, two of them being occupied as stores, one as a saddler's shop, one had the sign of "Law Office" upon it ; one was a jail ; two were occupied by physicians, one other looked as if it might be a meeting-honse or school- house, or the shop of any mechanic needing much Hght for his work, and two were "Hotels." At one of these we stopped to dine ; Jane had " com and fodder" (they had no oats or hay in the stable), and I had ham and eggs (they had no fresh meat in the house). I had several other things, ho^ ever, that were very good, besides the company of the landlady, who sat alone with me, at the table, in a long, dining hall, and was very pretty, amiable, and talkative. In a course of apologies, which came in the place of soup, she gave me the clue to the assemblage of negroes I had seen at the mill. It was Christmas week ; all the servants thought they must go, for at least one day, to have a frolic, and to-day (as luck would have it, when I was coming.) her cook was off with some others ; she did not suppose they'd be back till to-morrow, and then, likely as not, they'd be drunk. She did not think this custom, of letting servants go so, at Christmas, was a good one ; niggers were not fit to be let to take care of themselves, anyhow. It was very bad for them, ■mGixiA. 75 md she didn't tLdnk it was right Providence had pnt tlie servants into our hands to be looked out for, and she didn't oeHeve it was intended they should be let to do all sorts )f wickedness, even if Christmas did come but once a year. She wished, for her part, it did not come but once in ten years. (The negroes, that were husking maize near the cabm where :he white man hved, were, no doubt, slaves, who had hired hemselves out by the day, during the hohday-week, to earn I httle money on their own accoimt.) In regard to the size of the dim'ng-hall, and the extent of ;heds in the stable-yard, the ^ndlady told me that though at )ther times they very often did not have a single guest in a lay, at " Court time " they always had more than they could jomfortably accommodate. I judged, also, from her manners md the general appearance of the house, as well as from the jharges, that, at such times, the company might be of a :ather respectable character. The appearance of the other onblic-house indicated that it expected a less select patronage. When I left, my direction was to keep on the main road intil I came to a fork, about four miles distant, then take the [eft, and keep the hest-travelled road, until I came to a certain bouse, which was so described that I should know it, where I ^as advised to ask further directions. The sky was now clouding over ; it was growing cold ; and we went on, as fast as we conveniently could,'until we reached the fork in the road. The direction to keep the best-travelled :oad, was unpleasantly prominent in my mind ; it was near sunset, I reflected, and however jolly it might be at twelve Dclock at noon, it would be quite another thing to be knock- Jig about among those fierce hogs in the pine-forest, if I should be lost, at twelve o'clock at night. Besides, as the Landlady said about her negroes, I did not think it was right 'to expose Jane to this danger, unnecessarily. A httle beyond 76 COTTON A^^) SLAVERY. the fork, there was a large, gray, old house, with a groye of tall pojolars before it; a respectable, coimtry-gentleman-of- the-old-school look it had. — These old Yirginians are pro- verbially hospitable. — It's rather impudent ; but I hate to go back to the Court House, and I am 1 will ride on, and look it in the face, at any rate. Zigzag fences up to a large, square yard, growing fall of Lombardy poplar sprouts, from the roots of eight or ten old trees, which were planted some fifty years ago, I suppose, in a double row, on two sides of the house. At the fui^ther end of this yard, beyond the house, ^ate opened on the road, and out of this was just then coming a black man. I inquired of him if there was a house, near by, at which I could get accommodation for the night. Beckoned his master 'd take me in, if I'd ask him. Where was his master ? In the house : I could go light in here (at a place where a panel of the paling had fallen over) and see him if I wanted to. I asked him to hold my horse, and went in. It was a simple two-story house, very much like those built by the wealthier class of people in New England villages, from fifty to a hundred years ago, except that the chimneys were carried up outside the walls. There was a porch at the front door, and a small wing at one end, in the rear : from this vung to the other end extended a broad gallery. A dog had been barking at me after I had dismounted ; and just as I reached the steps of the gallery, a vigorous, middle-aged man, with a rather sullen and suspicious ex- pression of face, came out without any coat on, to see what had excited him. Doubting if he were the master of the house, I told him that I had come in to inquire if it would be convenient to allow me to spend the night with them. He asked where I came from, where I was going to, and various other questions, VIRGINIA. 77 'mtil I had given him an epitome of my day's wanderings md adventures ; at the conchision of which he walked to the 3nd of the gallery to look at my horse ; then, without giving ue any answer, but muttering indistinctly something about ;ervants, walked into the house, shutting the door behind him ! Well, thought I, this is not overwhelmingly hospitable. What can it mean ? While I was considering whether he expected me to go vithout any further talk — his curiosity being, I judged, ;atisfied — he came out again, and said, " Eeckon you can itay, sir, if you'll take what we'll give you." (The good man lad been in to consult his wife.) I replied that I would do thankfully, and hoped they would not give themselves any mnecessary trouble, or alter their usual family arrangements. " was then invited to come in, but I preferred to see my lorse taken care of first. My host called for " Sam," two or hree times, and then said he reckoned all his people " had ;one off, and he would attend to my horse himself. I offered assist him, and we walkod out to the gate, where the legro, not being inchned to wait for my return, had left ane fastened to a post. Our host conducted us to an old quare log-cabin which had formerly been used for curing Dbacco, there being no room for Jane, he said, in the stables roper. The floor of the tobacco-house was covered with lumber, Id ploughs, scythes and cradles, a part of which had to be amoved to make room for the filly to stand. She was then iduced, with some difficulty, to enter it through a low, juare doorway ; saddle and bridle were removed, and she 'as fastened in a comer by a piece of old plough-line. We len went to a fodder-stack, and pulled out from it several nail bundles of maize leaves. Additiotial feed and water ere promised when " some of the niggers " came in ; and. 78 COTTON AND SLAVERY. after righting up an old door that had fallen from one hinge, and setting a rail against it to keep it in its place, we re- turned to the house. My host (whom I will call llr. Newman) observed that his buildings and fences were a good deal out of order. He had owned the place but a few years, and had not had time to make much improvement about the house yet. Entering the mansion, he took me to a large room on the first floor, gave me a chair, went out and soon returned (no\s wearing a coat) with two negro girls, one bringing wood and the other some flaming brands. A fire was made with £ great deal of trouble, scolding of the girls, bringing in more brands, and blowing with the mouth. When the room hac been suffocatingly filled with smoke, and at length a stron^ bright blaze swept steadily up the chinmey, ]\Ir. Nevmai again went out with the girls, and I was left alone for nearh an hour, with one interruption, when he came in and thre"^ some more wood upon the fire, and said he hoped I woulc make myseK comfortable. It was a square room, with a door from the hall on. one side and two windows on each of the other sides. The lower par of the walls was wainscoted, and the upper part, with th ceihng, plastered and whitewashed. The fire-place am mantel-piece were somewhat carved, and were painted black all the wood-work lead colour. Blue paper curtains covere< the windows ; the floor was uncarpeted, and the only furnitur in the room was some strong plain chairs, painted yellow, an a Connecticut clock, which did not run. The house ha evidently been built for a family of some wealth, and, afte having been deserted by them, had been bought at a bargai by the present resident, who either had not the capital or tb mclination to furnish and occupy it appropriately. When my entertainer called again, he merely opened th / YIEGDsIA. 79 door and said, " Come ! get sometliing to eat !" I followed him out into tlie galleiy, and thence through a door at its end into a room in the wing — a family room, and a very com- fortable homely room. A bountifully spread supper-table stood in the centre, at which was sitting a very neat, pretty httle woman, of as silent habits as her husband, but neither bashful nor morose. A very nice Httle girl sat at her right side, and a peevish, ill-behaved, whining glutton of a boy at her left. I was requested to be seated adjoining the Httle girl, and the master of the house sat opposite me. The fomih side of the table was unoccupied, though a plate and chair were placed there, as if some one else had been expected. The two negro girls waited at table, and a negro^ boy was in the room, who, when I asked for a glass of water, was sent to get it. An old negro woman also frequently came in from the kitchen, with hot biscuit and corn-cake. There was fiied fowl, and fried bacon and eggs, and cold ham ; there were preserved peaches, and preserved quinces and grapes ; there was hot wheaten biscuit, and hot short-cake, and hot corn- cake, and hot griddle cakes, soaked in butter; there was coffee, and there was milk, sour or sweet, whichever I pre- ferred to drink. I really ate more than I wanted, and ex- toUed the corn-cake and the peach preserve, and asked how they were made ; but I evidently disappointed my pretty hostess, who said she was afraid there wasn't anything that suited me, — she feared there wasn't anything on the table I could eat ; and she was sorry I couldn't make out a supper. And this was about all she would say. I tried to get a conver- sation started, but could obtain Httle more than very laconic answers to my questions. Except from the little girl at my side, whose confidence I 'gained by taking an opportunity, when her mother was engaged with young Hopeful t'other side the coffee-pot, to 80 COTTON AND SLAVERY. give her a great deal of quince and grape, and by several times pouring molasses very freely on her cakes and bacon ; and finally by feeding Pink out of my hand. (Hopeful had done this first, and then kicked him away, when he came round to Martha and me.) She told me her name, and that she had got a kitten, and that she hated Pink ; and that she went to a Sunday-school at the Court House, and that she was going to go to an every-day school next winter — she wasn't big enough to walk so far now, but she would be then. But Billy said he didn't mean to go, because he didn't like to, though Billy was bigger nor she was, a heap. She reckoned when Billy saw Wash. Baker going past every day, and heard how much fun he had every day with the other boys at the school, he would want to go too, wouldn't he ? etc. etc. When supper was ended, I set back my chair to the wall, and took her on my knee ; but after she had been told twice not to trouble the gentleman, and I had testified that she didn't do it, and after several mild hints that I would perhaps find it pleasanter in the sitting-room — (the chairs in the supper-room were the easiest, being country-made, low, and seated with undressed calf-skin), she was called to, out of the kitchen, and Mr. Newman said — going to the door and opening it for me — " Keckon you'd better walk into the sittin'-room, sir." I talked out at this, and said I would go and look at the filly. Mr. Newman called " Sam " again, and Sam, ha\dng at that moment arrived at the kitchen door, was ordered to go and take care of this gentleman's horse. I followed Sam to the tobacco-house, and gave him to know that he would be properly remembered for any attentions he could give to Jane. He watered her, and brought her a large supply of oats ia straw, and some maize on the cob ; but he could get no fitter, and declared there was no straw on the plantation, though VIRGINIA. 81 the next morning I saw a large quantity in a Leap (not a stack), at a little greater distance than he was willing to go for it, I suppose, at a bam on the opposite side of the road. Having seen her rubbed clean and apparently well contented , with her quarters and her supper, I bade her good-night, and returned to the house. I did not venture again into the supper-room, but went to the sitting-room, where I found Miss Martha Ann and her kitten ; I was having a good time with her, when her father came in and told her she was troubling the gentleman." I denied it, and he took a seat by the fire with us, and I soon succeeded in drawing him into a conversation on forming, and the differences in our methods of work at the North and those he was accustomed to. I I learned that there were no white labouring men here who hired themselves out by the month. The poor white people that had to labour for their living, never would work steadily at any employment. " They generally followed boating" — hiring as hands on the bateaus that navigate the small streauis and canals, but never for a longer term at once than a single trip of a boat, whether that might be long or short. At the 3nd of the trip they were paid by the day. Their wages vere fi'om fifty cents to a dollar, varying with the demand and ndividual capacities. They hardly ever worked on farms except in harvest, when they usually received a dollar a day, iometimes more. In harvest-fime, most of the rural mecha- lics closed their shops and hired out to the farmers at a lollar a day, which would indicate that their ordinary eam- Qgs are considerably less than this. At other than harvest- mie, the poor white people, who had no trade, would ometimes work for the farmers by the job ; not often any egular agricultm^al labour, but at gettiag rails or shingles, r clearing land. VOL. I. G 82 COTTON AND SLAVEKY. He did not know that they were particular about working with negroes, but no white man would ever do certain kinds of work (such as taking care of cattle, or getting water or wood to be used in the house) ; and if you should ask a white man you had hired, to do such things, he would get mad and teU you he wasn't a nigger. Poor white girls never hired out to do servants' work, but they would come and help another white woman about her sewing and quilting, and take wages for it. But these giids were not very respectable generally, and it was not agreeable to have them in yom* house, though there were some very respectable ladies that would go out to sew. Farmers depended almost entii'ely upon their negroes ; it was only when they were hard pushed by their crops, that they ever got white hands to help them. Negroes had commanded such high wages lately, to work on raih'oads and in tobacco-factories, that farmers were tempted to hire out too many of their people, and to undertake to do too much work with those they retained ; and thus they were often driven to employ white men, and to give them veiy high wages by the day, when they found themselves getting much behind-hand mth their crops. He had been driven very hard in this way this last season ; he had been so unfortunate as to lose one of his best women, who died in child-bed just before harvest. The loss of the woman and her child, for the child had died also, just at that time, came very hard upon him. He would not have taken a thousand dollars of any man's money for them. He had had to hire white men to help him, but they were poor sticks, and would be half the time drunk, and you never know what to depend upon with them. One fellow that he had hired, who had agreed to work for him all through harvest, got him to pay him some wages in advance (he said it was tc buy him some clothes with, so that he could go to meeting od Sunday, at the Court House), and went off the next day, right 83 ! in the middle of harvest, and he had never seen him since. He had heard of him — he was on a boat — but he didn't reckon he ' should ever get his money again. Of course, he did not see how white labourers were ever going to come into competition with negroes here, at all. You never could depend on white men, and you couldn't drive them any ; they wouldn't stand it. Slaves were the only reliable labom'ers — you could command them and make them do what was right. From the manner in which he talked of the white laboming people, it was evident that, although he placed them in some sort on an equality with himself, and that in his intercourse with them he wouldn't think of asserting for himself any 'Superior dignity, or even feel himself to be patronizing them in not doing so, yet he, all the time, recognized them as a distinct and a rather despicable class, and wanted to have as httle to do with them I'lS he conveniently could. I have been once or t™e told that the poor white people, meaning those, I suppose, who bring nothing to market to exchange for money but their labour, although they may own I cabin and a little furniture, and cultivate land enough to supply themselves with (maize) bread, are worse off in almost dl respects than the slaves. They are said to be extremely gnorant and immoral, as well as indolent and unambitious. That their condition is not so unfortunate by any means as hat of negroes, however, is most obvious, since from among hem, men sometimes elevate themselves to positions and 'labits of usefulness, and respectabihty. They are said to corrupt" the negroes, and to encourage them to steal, or to rork for them at night and on Smidays, and to pay them with ' quor, and also to constantly associate Hcentiously with them. hey seem, nevertheless, more than any Either portion of the )mmunity, to hate and despise the negroes. In the midst of our conversation, one of the black girls had G 2 84 COTTON AND SLAVERY. come into the room and stood still witli her head dropped for- ward, staring at me from under her brows, without saying a word. When she had waited, in this way, perhaps two minutes, her master turned to her and asked what she wanted. " Miss Matty says Marta Ann go to bed now." But Martha Ann refused to budge ; after being told once or twice by her father to go with Eose, she came to me and lifted up her hands, I supposed to kiss me and go, but when I reached down, she took hold of my shoulders and climbed up on to my knees. Her father seemed to take no notice of this proceeding, but continued talking about guano ; Kose went to a corner of the fire-place, dropped doTO upon the floor, and presently was asleep, leaning her head against the wall. In about half an hom^ the other negro girl came to the door, when Mr. Newman abruptly called out, " Girl ! take that child to bed !" and immediately got up himself and walked out. Eose roused herself, and lifted Martha Ann out of my arms, ana carried her off fast asleep. Mr. Newman returned hold- ing a small candle, and, without entering the room, stood at the door and said, "I'll show you your bed if you are ready, sir." As he evidently meant, " I am ready to show you to bed if you will not refuse to go," I followed him up stairs. Into a large room, again, with six windows, with a fire- place, in which a few brands were smoking, with some wool spread thinly upon the floor in a corner ; with a dozen small bundles of tobacco leaves ; with a lady's saddle ; with a deep feather-bed, covered with a bright patch-work quilt, on a maple bedstead, and without a single item of any other furni- ture whatever. Mr. Newman asked if I wanted the candle to undress by ; I said yes, if he pleased, and waited a moment for him to set it down: as he did not do so, I walked towards him, lifting my hand to take it. " No— I'll hold it," said he, and I then perceived that he had no candlestick, but held VIRGINIA, 85 the lean little dip in his hand : I remembered also that no candle had been brought into the ''sitting-room," and that while we were at supper only one candle had stood upon the table, which had been immediately extinguished when we rose, the room being lighted only from the fire. ' I very quickly undressed and hung my clothes upon a bed- ipost : Mr. Newman looked on in silence until I had got into bed, when, with an abrupt " Good-night, sir," he went out and shut the door. \ I It was not until after I had consulted Sam the next morning 'that I ventured to consider that my entertainment might be taken as a mere business transaction, and not as " genuine planter's hospitality," though this had become rather a ridi- culous view of it, after a repetition of the supper, in all 'respects, had been eaten for breakfast, w^ith equal moroseness on the part of my host and equal quietness on the part of his kind-looking httle wife. I was, nevertheless, amused at the promptness with which he replied to my rather hesitating inquiry — what I might pay him for the trouble I had given him — " I reckon a dollar and a quarter will be right, sir." I have described, perhaps with tedious prolixity, what idventures befell me, and what scenes I passed through in my first day's random riding, for the purpose of giving an idea of 'the uncultivated and unimproved — rather, sadly worn and ^Qiisused — condition of some parts, and I judge, of a very large part, of all Eastern Virginia, and of the isolated, lonely, and lissociable aspect of the dwelling-places of a large part of the )eople. I subsequently rode for three weeks in Eastern and Central Virginia, the country differing n©t very greatly in its characteristics from that here described. Much the same general characteristics pervade the Slave states, everywhere, except in certain rich regions, or on the 86 COTTON AND SLAVERY. banks of some rivers, or in tlie vicinity of some great routes of travel and transportation, which have occasioned closer settlement or stimulated public spirit. For hours and hours one has to ride through the unlimited, continual, all-shadow- ing, all-embracing forest, following roads, in the making of which no more labour has been given than was necessary to remove the timber which would obstruct the passage of wag- gons ; and even for days and days he may sometimes travel, and see never two dwellings of mankind within sight of each other ; only, at long distances, often several miles asunder, these isolated plantation patriarchates. If a traveller leaves the main road to go any distance, it is not to be imagined how difficult it is for him to find his way from one house to any other in particular ; his only safety is in the fact that, unless there are mountains or swamps in the way, he is not likely to go many miles upon any waggon or horse track without coming to some white man's habitation. The countiy passed through, in the early part of my second day's ride, was very similar in general characteristics to that I have already described ; only that a rather larger portion of it was cleared, and plantations were more frequent. About eleven o'clock I crossed a bridge and came to the meeting-house I had been expecting to reach by that hour the previous day. It was in the midst of the woods, and the small clearing around it was stiU dotted with the stumps of the trees out of whose trunks it had been built ; for it was a log structure. In one end there was a single square port, closed by a sliding shutter ; in the other end were two doors, both standing open. In front of the doors, a rude scaffolding had been made of poles and saplings, extending out twenty feet from the wall of the house, and this had been covered with boughs of trees, the leaves now withered ; a few benches VIRGINIA. 87 made of split trunks of trees slightly hewn with the axe, were arranged under this arbour, as if the religious service was sometimes conducted on the outside in preference to the interior of the edifice. Looking in, I saw that a gallery or loft extended from over the doors, across about one-third the I length of the house, access to which was had by a ladder. At the opposite end was a square unpainted pulpit, and on , the floor were rows of rude benches. The house was suffi- iciently lighted by crevices between the upper logs. Half an hour after this I arrived at the negro-quarters — a little hamlet of ten or twelve small and dilapidated cabins. Just beyond them was a plain farm-gate, at which several negroes were standing : one of them, a well-made man, with lan intelligent countenance and prompt manner, directed me how to find my way to his owner's house. It was still nearly a mile distant; and yet, until I arrived in its immediate vicinity, I saw no cultivated field, and but one clearing. In the edge of this clearing, a number of negroes, male and female, lay stretched out upon the ground near a small smoking charcoal pit. Their master afterwards informed mo ithat they were burning charcoal for the plantation blacksmith, using the time allowed them for holidays — from Christmas to New Year's Day — to earn a little money for themselves in this way. He paid them by the bushel for it. When I said that I supposed he allowed them to take what wood they chose for this purpose, he replied that he had five hundred acres covered with wood, which he would be very glad to have any one bum, or clear off in any way. Mr. W.'s house was an old family mansion, which he had himself remodelled " in the Grecian style," and furnished mth a large wooden portico. An oak forest had originally occupied the ground where it sj^od ; but this having been i3leared and the soil worn out in cultivation by the previous 88 COTTON AND SLAVEET. proprietors, pine woods now surrounded it in every direction, a square of a few acres only being kept clear immediately about it. A number of the old oaks still stood in the rear of the house, and, until Mr. W. commenced " his improve- ments," there had been some in its front. But as he deemed these to have an aspect of negligence and rudeness, not quite proper to be associated with a fine house, he had cut them OTay, and substituted formal rows of miserable little ailanthus trees. I could not believe my ears till this explanation had been twice repeated to me. On three sides of the outer part of the cleared square, which was called the lawn," but which was no more like a lawn than it was like a sea-beach, there was a row of negro- cabins, stables, tobacco-houses, and other offices, all built of rough logs. Mr. W. was one of the few large planters of his vicinity who still made the culture of tobacco their principal business. He said there was a general prejudice against tobacco, in all the tide-water region of the State, because it was through the culture of tobacco that the once fertile soils had been im- poverished ; but he did not believe that, at the present value of negroes, their labour could be apphed to the culture of grain, with any profit, except under peculiarly favom^able cir- cumstances. Possibly, the use of guano might make wheat a paying crop, but he still doubted. He had not used it, himself. Tobacco required fresh land, and was rapidly ex- hausting, but it returned more money, for the labour used upon it, than anything else ; enough more, in his opinion, to pay for the wearing out of the land. If he was well paid for it, he did not know why he should not wear out his land. His tobacco-fields were nearly all in a distant and lower part of his plantation ; lan^ which had been neglected before his time, in a great measure, because it had been sometimes VIRGmA. 89 ; flooded, and was, mucli of the year, too wet for cultivation. He was draining and clearing it, and it now brought good crops. He had had an Irish gang di'aining for him, by contract. He thought a negro could do twice as much work, in a day, as an Irishman. He had not stood over them and seen them at work, but judged entirely from the amount they accom- : plished : he thought a good gang of negroes would have got on twice as fest. He was siu-e they must have " trifled " a great deal, or they would have accomplished more than they had. He complained much, also, of then- sprees and quarrels. I asked why he should employ Irishmen, in preference to doing the work with his own hands. " It s dangerous work [unhealthy ?], and a negro's life is too valuable to be risked at it. If a negro dies, it's a considerable loss, you know." He afterwards said that his negroes never worked so hard as to tire themselves — ^always were lively, and ready to go oflf on a frolic at night. He did not think they ever did half a fair day's work. They could not be made to work hard : they never would lay out their strength freely, and it was impossible to make them do it. This is just what I have thought when I have seen slaves at work — they seem to go through the motions of labour without putting strength into them. They keep then- powers ) |m reserve for their own use at night, perhaps. Mr. W. also said that he cultivated only the coarser and lower-priced sorts of tobacco, because the finer sorts required more painstaking and discretion than it was possible to make :a large gang of negroes use. You can make a nigger work," he said, " but you cannot make him think." Although Mr. W. was so wealthy (or, at least, would be iconsidered anywhere at the North), and had been at college, ihis style of living was very farmer-like, and thoroughly iSouthern. On their plantations, generally, the Virginia gen- 90 COTTON AND SLAVERY. tlemen seem to drop their full dress and constrained towr habits, and to live a free, rustic, shooting-jacket life. dined in a room that extended out, rearwardly, from th( house, and which, in a Northern establishment, would haY( been the kitchen. The cooking was done in a detached log- cabin, and the dishes brought some distance, through the oper air, by the seryants. The outer door was left constantly open, though there was a fii'e in an enormous old fire-place, larg( enough, if it could have been distributed sufficiently, to haY( lasted a New York seamstress the best part of the winter By the door there was indiscriminate admittance to negr( children and fox-hounds, and, on an average, there were foui of these, grinning or licking their chops, on either side o my chair, all the time I was at the table. A stout womai acted as head waitress, employing two handsome little mulatt< boys as her aids in communicating with the kitchen, fron which relays of hot corn-bread, of an excellence quite new t' me, were brought at frequent intervals. There was no othe: bread, and but one vegetable served — sweet potato, roasted ii ashes, and this, I thought, was the best sweet potato, also that I ever had eaten ; but there were fom^ preparations c swine's flesh, besides fried fowls, fried eggs, cold roast turkey and opossum, cooked, I know not how, but it somewha resembled baked sucking-pig. The only beverages on th table were milk and whisky. I was pressed to stay several days with Mr. W., and shoul have been glad to do so, had not another engagement pre vented. When I was about to leave, an old servant wa directed to get a horse, and go with me, as guide, to tl raiboad station at Col. Gillin's. He followed behind me, an I had great difficulty in inducing him to ride near enough t converse with me. I ^^dshed to ascertain from him how ol the different stages of the old-field forest-growth, by the sic VIEGmiA. 91 , of our road, might be ; but for a long time, he was, or pre- I tended to be, unable to comprehend my questions. When he did so, the most accurate information he could give me was, that he reckoned such a field (in which the pines were now .some sixty feet high) had been planted with tobacco the year his old master bought him. He thought he was about : twenty years old then, and that now he was forty. He had . every appearance of being seventy. He frequently told me there was no need for him to go any fiurther, and that it was a dead straight road to the station, without any forks. As he appeared very eager to return, I was at length foolish enough to allow myself to be prevailed upon to dispense with his guidance; gave him a ; quarter of a dollar for his time that I had employed, and !went on alone. The road, which for a short distance further was plain enough, soon began to ramify, and, in half an hour, we were stumbling along a dark wood-path, looking eagerly for a house. At length, seeing one across a large clearing, we went through a long lane, opening gates and letting down bars, until we met two negroes, riding a mule, who were goin^to the plantation near the school-house which we had seen the day before. Following them thither, we knew the irest of the way (Jane gave a bound and neighed, when we struck the old road, showing that she had been lost, as well as I, up to the moment) . It was twenty minutes after the hour given in the time- table for the passage of the train, when I reached the station, but it had not arrived ; nor did it make its appearance for a quarter of an hour longer ; so I had plenty of time to deliver Tom's wife's message and take leave of Jane. I am sorry to say she appeared very indifferent, and seemed to think a good deal more of Tom than of me. 'Mr. W. had told me hat the train would, probably, be haKan hour behind its adver^ COTTON AND SLA\T:RY. tised time, and that I had no need to ride witli haste, to reach it. I asked Col. Gillin if it would be safe to always calculate on the train being half an hour late : he said it would not ; for, although usually that much behind the time- table, it was sometimes half an hour ahead of it. So those, who would be safe, had commonly to wait an hom\ People, therefore, who wished to go not more than twenty miles from home, would find it more convenient, and equally expeditious, taking all things into account, to go in their own convey- ances — there being but few who lived so near the station that they would not have to employ a horse and servant to get to it. . . I have been visiting a farm, culti- vated entirely by free labour. The proprietor told me that lie was first led to disuse slave-labour, not from any econo- mical considerations, but because he had become convinced that there was an essential wrong in holding men in forced sei fitude with any other pm-pose than to benefit them alone, and because he was not willing to allow his own children to be educated as slave-masters. His father had been a# large slaveholder, and he felt very strongly the bad influence it had had on his own character. He wished me to be satisfied that Jefferson uttered a great truth when he asserted that slavery was more pernicious to the white race than the black. Although, therefore, a chief part of his inheritance had been in slaves, he had liberated them all. Most of them had, by his advice, gone to Africa. These he had frequently heard from. Except a child that had been drowned, they were, at his last account, all alive, in general good health, and satisfactorily prospering. He had lately received a letter from one of them, who told him that he was tryingf to preach the Gospel," and who had evidently VIRGINIA. i93 ,greatly improYed, both intellectually and morally, since he left here. With regard to those going North, and the common Dpinion that they encountered much misery, and would be much better off here, he said that it entu-ely depended on the general character and habits of the individual : it was true of .those who were badly brought up, and who had acquired ndolent and vicious habits, especially if they were di'mikards, ,Dut, if of some inteUigence and well trained, they generally i^epresented themselves to be successful and contented. He mentioned two remarkable cases, that had come under lis own observation, of this kind. One was that of a man ,vho had been free, but, by some fraud and informality of his papers, was re-enslaved. He ran away, and afterwards legotiated, by correspondence, with his master, and purchased lis freedom. This man he had accidentally met, fifteen /ears afterwards, in & Northern city ; he was engaged in profitable and increasing business, and showed him, by his )ooks, that he was possessed of property to the amount of ,ien thousand dollars. He was living a great deal more comfortably and wisely than ever his old master had, done. The other case was that of a coloured woman, who had )btained her freedom, and who became apprehensive that she ;lso was about to be fraudulently made a slave again. She led to Philadelphia, where she was nearly starved, at first. Httle gfrl, who heard her begging in the streets to be flowed to work for bread, told her that her mother was anting some washing done, and she followed her home, -he mother, not knowing her, was afraid to trust her with he articles to be washed. She prayed so earnestly for the .ob, however — suggesting that she might be locked into a Dom until she had completed it — that it was given her. So she commenced life in Philadelphia. Ten years after- ;ards he had accidentally met her there ; she recognized him COTTON AND SLAVERY. immediately, recalled herself to liis recollection, manifested the greatest joy at seeing him, and asked him to come to her house, which he found a handsome three-story building, furnished really with elegance ; and she pointed out to him, from the window, three houses in the vicinity that she owned and rented. She showed great anxiety to have her children well educated, and was employing the best instructors for them which she could procm-e in Philadelphia. He considered the condition of slaves to have much im- proved since the Eevolution, and very perceptibly during the last twenty years. The original stock of slaves, the imported Africans, he observed, probably required to be governed with much greater severity, and very httle humanity was exercised or thought of with regard to them. The slaves of the present day are of a higher character ; in fact, he did not think more than half of them were full-blooded Africans. Public senti- ment condemned the man who treated his slaves with cruelty. The owners were mainly men of some cultivation, and felt a family attachment to their slaves, many of whom had been the playmates of their boyhood. Nevertheless, they were frequently punished severely, under the impulse of temporary passion, often without deliberation, and on unfounded sus- picion. This was especially the case where they were left to overseers, who, though sometimes men of intelligence and piety, were more often coarse, brutal, and licentious ; drinking men, wholly unfitted for the responsibility imposed on them. With regard to the value of slave-labour, this gentleman is confident that, at present, he has the advantage in employing free men instead of it. It has not been so until of late, the price of slaves having much advanced within ten years, while immigration has made free white labourers more easy to be procured. He has heretofore had some difficulty in obtaining hani' VIRGINIA. 95 when he needed them, and has suffered a good deal from the jdemoralizing influence of adjacent slave-labour, the men, after ;a few months' residence, inclining to follow the customs of the slaves with regard to the amount of work they should do in a day, or their careless mode of operation. He has had white and black Virginians, sometimes Germans, and latterly Irish. lOf all these, he has found the Irish on the whole the best. The poorest have been the native white Virginians ; next, the i-ee blacks : and though there have been exceptions, he has aot generally paid these as high as one hundred dollars a year, and has thought them less worth their wages than any he has had. At present, he has two white natives and two Jree coloured men, but both the latter were brought up in his iamily, and are worth twenty doUars a year more than the iverage. The free bla-^^k, he thinks, is generally worse than he slave, and so is the poor white man. He also employs, at present, four Irish hands, and is expecting two more to arrive, vho have been recommended to him, and sent for by those he ,ias. He pays the Irishmen ^120 a year, and boards them. p[e has had them for BlOO; but these are aU excellent ,nen, and well worth their price. They are less given to Irinking than any men he has ever had ; and one of them irst suggested improvements to him in his farm, that le is now carrying out with prospects of considerable ad- antage. Housemaids, Irish girls, he pays ^ 3 and K 6 a aonth. He does not apprehend that in futm^e he shall have any ifficulty in obtaining steady men, who will accomplish much lore work than any slaves. There are some operations, such i carting and spreading dung, and aU yrork with the fork, ^^3ade, or shovel, at which his Irishmen wiU do, he thinks, |ver fifty per cent, more in a day than any negroes he has : l^rer known. On the w^hole, he is satisfied that at present 9a COTTON AND SLAVERY. fi:ee-labonr is more profitable than slave-labour, though his success is not so evident that he would be willing to have attention particularly called to it. His farm, moreover, is now in a transition state from one system of husbandry to another, and appearances are temporarily more unfavourable on that account. The wages paid for slaves, when they are hired for agri^ cultural labour, do not differ at present, he says, from those which he pays for his free labourers. In both cases th hiring party boards the labourer, but, in addition to mone and board, the slave-employer has to fm^nish clothing, and is subject, without redress, to any losses which may result from the carelessness or malevolence of the slave. He also has to lose his time if he is unwell, or when from any cause he is absent or unable to work. The slave, if he is indisposed to work, and especially if he is not treated well, or does not like the master who has hhed him, will sham sickness — even make himself sick or lame — that he need not work. But a more serious loss frequently arises,' when the slave, thinking he is worked too hard, oi being angered by punishment or unkind treatment, " getting the sulks," takes to " the swamp," and comes back when he has a mind to. Often this will not be till the year is up foi which he is engaged, when he will return to his owner, who. glad to find his property safe, and that it has not died in the swamp, or gone to Canada, forgets to punish him, and imme- diately sends him for another year to a new master. " But, meanwhile, how does the negro support life in th( swamp ?" I asked. " Oh, he gets sheep and pigs and calves, and fowls anc turkeys ; sometimes they will kill a small cow. We hav< often seen the fires, where they were cooking them, througl the woods, in the swamp yonder. If it is cold, he will craw 1 1 VIRGINIA. 97 ^under a fodder-stack, or go into the cabins witli some of the 'other negroes, and in the same way, you see, he can get all the corn, or almost anything else he wants. " He steals them from his master ?" " From any one ; frequently from me. I have had many .1 sheep taken by them." • I " It is a common thing, then ?" " Certainly, it is, very common, and the loss is sometimes 3xceedingly provoking. One of my neighbours here was '^oing to build, and hired two mechanics for a year. Just as le was ready to put his house up, the two men, taking offence it something, both ran away, and did not come back at all ill their year was out, and then their owner immediately lired them out again to another man." These negroes " in the swamp," he said, were often hunted fter, but it was very difficult to find them, and, if caught, hey would run again, and the other negroes would hide and ssist them. Dogs to track them he had never known to be 'sed in Vhginia. \ i Saturday, Dec. 25th. — From Christmas to New- Year's )ay, most of the slaves, except house servants, enjoy a •eedom from labour ; and Christmas is especially holiday, or aturnaha, with them. The young ones began last night ring crackers, and I do not observe that they are engaged in . ly other amusement to-day; the older ones are generally I jatting drunk, and making business for the police. I have seen rge gangs coming in from the country, and these contrast uch in their general appearance with the town negroes. The tter are dressed expensively, and frequeiiily more elegantly an the whites. They seem to be spending money freely, and observe that they, and even the slaves that wait upon me at e hotel, often have watches, and other articles of value. VOL. I. H 98 COTTON AND SLAVERY. The slaves have a good many ways of obtaining " spending money," which though in law belonging to their owner, as the property of a son under age does to his father, they are never dispossessed of, and use for their own gratification, with even less restraint than a wholesome regard for their health and moral condition may be thought to require. A Eich- mond paper, complaining of the liberty allowed to slaves ir this respect, as calculated to foster an insubordinate spirit speaks of their " champagne suppers." The police brok( into a gambling cellar a few nights since, and found abou twenty negroes at " high play," with all the usual accessorie of a first-class "Hell." It is mentioned that, among th number taken to the watch-house, and treated with lashe the next morning, there were some who had previously en joyed a high reputation for piety, and others of a very elegar or foppish appearance. Passing two negroes in the street, I heard the following : " Workin' in a tobacco factory all de year roun', a: come Cliristmas only twenty dollars ! Workin' mighty har* too — up to twelve o'clock o' night very often — an' then hab a nigger oberseah !" " A nigger !" - ' Yes — dat's it, yer see. Wouldn't care if 'twam't for di Nothin' but a dirty nigger ! orderin' 'round, jes' as if he "W ) a wite man !" I It is the custom of tobacco manufacturers to hire sla"V • and free negroes at a certain rate of wages per year. A ta of 45 lbs. per day is given them to work up, and all that th choose to do more than this they are paid for — paytncj being made once a fortnight ; and invariably this over-wan is used by the slave for himself, and is usually spent ]■ drinking, licentiousness, and gambling. The man was grun'- m ling that he had saved but $20 to spend at the holidays, j m VTRGINIA. 99 Sitting with a company of smokers last night, one of them, to show me the manner in which a slave of any ingenuity or cnnning would manage to avoid working for his master's 'profit, narrated the following anecdote. He was executor of an estate in which, among other negroes, there was one very smart man, who, he knew perfectly well, ought to be earning for the estate ^ 150 a year, and who could do it if he chose, yet whose wages for a year, being let out by the day or job, had amounted to but ^18, while he had paid for medi- cal attendance upon him ^45. Having failed in every other way to make him earn anything, he proposed to him that he should purchase his freedom and go to Philadelphia, where he had a brother. He told him that if he would earn a certain sum (8400- I believe), and pay it over to the lestate for himself, he would give him his free papers. The man agreed to the arrangement, and by his overwork in a tobacco factory, and some assistance from his free brother, ^oon paid the sum agreed upon, and was sent to Philadelphia. A few weeks afterwards he met him in the street, and asked Mm why he had retmned. " Oh, I don't hke dat Philadelphy, nassa ; an't no chance for coloured folks dere ; spec' if I'd )een a runaway, de wite folks dere take care o' me ; but I wouldn't git any thin' to do, so I jis borrow ten dollar of my )roder, and cum back to old Yirginny." " But you know the law forbids your return. I wonder hat you are not afraid to be seen here ; I should think ^Ir. [an officer of police] would take you up." " Oh ! I look out for dat, massa ; I juss hire myself out ) Mr. himself, ha ! ha 1 He tink I^'our boy." And so it proved ; the officer, thinking that he was per- litted to hire himself out, and tempted by the low wages at hich he offered himself, had neglected to ask for his written ermission, and had engaged him for a year. He still lived H 2 100 COTTON AND SLAVERY. with the officer, and was an active, healthy, good servant to him. A well-informed capitalist and slave-holder remarked, that negroes could not be employed in cotton factories. I said that I understood they were so in Charleston^ and some other places at the South. " It may be so, yet," he answered, " but they will have to give it up." The reason was, he said, that the negro could never be trained to exercise judgment ; he cannot be made to use his mind ; he always depends on machinery doing its own work, and cannot be made to watch it. He neglects it until some- thing is broken or there is great waste. "We have tried rewards and punishments, but it makes no difference. It's his nature and you cannot change it. All men are indolent and have a disinclination to labour, but this is a great deal stronger in the African race than in any other. In working ni[,gers, we must always calculate that they will not labour at all except to avoid punishment, and they will never do more than just enough to save themselves from being punished, and no amount of punishment wiU prevent their working carelessly and indifferently. It always seems on the plantation as if they took pains to break all the tools and spoil all the cattle that they possibly can, even when they know they'll be directly punished for it." As to rewards, he said, " They only want to suj)port life: they will not work for anything more ; and in this country it would be hard to prevent their getting that." I thought this opinion of the power of rewards was not exactly confirmed the narrative we had just heard, but I said nothing. " I you could move," he continued, "all the white people froir the whole seaboard district of Virginia and give it up to the negroes that are on it now, just leave them to themselves VIEGINIA. 101 in ten years' time there would not he an acre of land culti- vated, and nothing would be produced, except what grew spontaneously. [The Hon. Willoughby Newton, by the way, seems to think that if it had not been for the introduction of guano, a similar desolation would have soon occurred without the xAiricaniza- tion of the country. He is reported to have said : — [" I look upon the introduction of guano, and the success attending its appHcation to our barren lands, in the light of a special interposition of Divine Providence, to save the northern neck of Virginia from reverting entirely into its former state of wilderness and utter desolation. Until the discovery of guano — more valuable to us than the mines of California — I looked upon the possibihty of renovating our soil, of ever bringing it to a point capable of producing re- munerating crops, as utterly hopeless. Our up-lands were all worn out, and our bottom-lands fast failing, and if it had i not been for guano, to revive our last hope, a few years more and the whole country must have been deserted by ^11 who desired to increase their own wealth, or advance the cause of civilization by a proper cultivation of the earth."] I said I supposed that they were much better off, more improved intellectually, and more kindly treated in Virginia than further South. He said I was mistaken in both respects — that in Louisiana, especially, they were more intelligent, because the amalgamation of the races was much greater, and they were treated with more famiharity by the whites ; be- sides which, the laws of Louisiana were much more favourable to them. For instance, they required the planter to give slaves 200 pounds of pork a year : and^ he gave a very apt anecdote, showing the effect of this law, but which, at the same time, made it evident that a Virginian may be ac- customed to neglect providing sufficient food for his force, 102 COTTON AND SLAVERY. and that they sometimes suffer greatly for want of it. I was assm'ed, however, that this was very rare — that, generally, the slaves were well provided for — always allowed a sufficient quantity of meal, and, generally, of pork — were permitted to raise pigs and poultry, and in summer could always grow as many vegetables as they wanted. It was observed, however, that they frequently neglect to provide for themselves in this way, and live mainly on meal and bacon. If a man does not provide well for his slaves, it soon becomes known ; he gets the name of a "nigger killer," and loses the respect of the community. The general allowance of food was thought to be a peck and a half of meal, and three pounds of bacon a week. This, it was observed, is as much meal as they can eat, but they would be glad to have more bacon ; sometimes they receive four pounds, but it is oftener that they get less than three. It is distributed to them on Saturday nights ; or, on the better managed plantations, sometimes on Wednesday, to prevent their using it extravagantly, or selling it for whisky on Sunday. This distribution is called the "drawing," and is made by the overseer to all the heads of families or single negroes. Except on the smallest plantations, where the cooking is done in the house of the proprietor, there is a cook-house, furnished with a large copper for boihng, and an oven. Every night the negroes take their " mess," for the next .lay's breakfast and dinner, to the cook, to be prepared for the next day. Custom varies as to the time it is served out to them ; sometimes at morning and noon, at other times at noon and night. Each negro marks his meat by cuts, so that he shaU know it from the rest, and they observe each other's rights with regard to this, punctihously. After breakfast has been eaten early in the cabins, at sun- rise, or a Httle before in winter, and perhaps a little later in VIKGINIA. lOB summer, they go to the field. At noon dinner is brought to them, and, unless the work presses, they are allowed two hours' rest. Very punctually at sunset they stop work and are at Hberty, except that a squad is detached once a week for shelhng com, to go to the mill for the next week's drawing of meal. Thus they work in the field about eleven hours a day, on an average. Eeturning to the cabins, wood " ought to have been " carted for them ; but if it has not been, they then go the woods and tote " it home for themselves. They then make a fire — a big, blazing fire at this season, for the supply of fuel is unlimited — and cook their own supper, which vdll be a bit of bacon fried, often with eggs, corn-bread baked in the spider after the bacon, to absorb the fat, and perhaps some sweet potatoes roasted in the ashes. Imme- diately after supper they go to sleep, often lying on the floor or a bench in preference to a bed. About two o'clock they very generally rouse i^p and cook and eat, or eat cold, what they call their " momin' bit ;" then sleep again till breakfast. They generally save from their ration of meal : commonly as much as five bushels of meal was sent to town by my infor- I mant's hands every week, to be sold for them. Upon inquiry, he ahnost always found that it belonged to only Uyo or three individuals, who had traded for it with the rest ; he added, that too often the exchange was for whisky, which, against his rules, they obtained of some rascally white people in the neighbourhood, and kept concealed. They were very fond of whisky, and sometimes much injured themselves with it. I To show me how well they were supplied wdth eggs, he said that once a vessel came to anchor, becalmed, off his place, and the captain came to him and asked leave to pm*- :hase some eggs of his people. He gave him permission, md called the cook to collect them for him. The cook asked low many she should bring. " Oh, ail you can get," he 104 COTTON AND SLAVERY. answered — and slie returned after a time, with several boys assisting her, bringing nearly two bushels, all the property of the slaves, and which they were willing to sell at four cents a dozen. One of the smokers explained to me that it is bad economy, not to allow an abundant supply of food to ^' a man's force." If not well provided for, the negroes will find a way to pro- vide for themselves. It is, also, but simple policy to have them well lodged and clothed. If they do not have comfort- able cabins and sufficient clothing, they will take cold, and be laid up. He lost a valuable negro, once, from having neglected to provide him with shoes. The houses of the slaves are usually log-cabins, of various degrees of comfort and commodiousness. At one end there is a great open fire-place, which is exterior to the wall of the house, being made of clay in an inclosure, about eight feet square and high, of logs. The chimney is sometimes ol brick, but more commonly of lath or split sticks, laid up hke log work and plastered v/ith mud. They enjoy great roaring fires, and, as the common fuel is pine, the cabin, at night when the door is open, seen from a distance, appears hke a fierce furnace. The chimneys often catch fire, and the cabin is destroyed. Yery little precaution can be taken against this danger.* Several cabins are placed near together, and they are called " the quarters." On a plantation of moderate size chere wiU be but one " quarters." The situation chosen » «' An Ingenious Negro. — In Lafayette, Miss., a few days ago, a negro, who, with his wife and three children, occupied a hut upon the plantation of Col. Peques, was very much annoyed hy fleas. Believing that they congregated in great numbers beneath the house, he resolved to destroy them by fire ; and accord- ingly, one night when his family were asleep, he raised a plank in the floor of the cabin, and, procuring an armful of shucks, scattered them on the ground beneath, and lighted them. The consequence was, that the cabin was consumed, and the whole family, with the exception of the man who lighted the fire, was burned to death." — Journal of Commerce. VIKGINIA. 105 for it has reference to convenience of obtaining water from ■ springs and fuel from the woods. . As to the clothing of the slaves on the plantations, they are said to be usually furnished by their owners or masters, every year, each vdth. a coat and trousers, of a coarse woollen or woollen and cotton stuff (mostly made, especially for this purpose, in Providence, K. I.) for winter, trousers of cotton osnaburghs for summer, sometimes with a jacket also of the same ; two pairs of strong shoes, or one pair of strong boots and one of Hghter shoes for harvest; three shirts, one blanket, and one felt hat. The women have two dresses of striped cotton, three shifts, two pairs of shoes, etc. The women lying-in are kept at knitting short sacks, from cotton, which, in Southern Ynginia, is usually raised for this purpose on the farm, and these are also given to the negroes. They also pm'chase clothing for themselves, and, I notice especially, are well supphed vdth. handkerchiefs, which the men frequently, and the women I nearly always, wear on their heads. On Sundays and holi- days they usually look vei7 smart, but when at work, very ragged and slovenly. At the conclusion of our bar-room session, some time after midnight, as we were retiring to our rooms, our progress up stairs and along the corridors was several times impeded, by negroes lying fast asleep, in their usual clothes only, upon the floor. I asked why they were not abed, and was an- swered by a gentleman, that negroes never wanted to go to bed ; they always preferred to sleep on the floor. That "slaves are bars," or, as they say here, "niggers will He," always has been proverbial. " They will he in their very prayers to God," said one, and I find illustrations of the trouble that the \ice occasions oi^ every hand here. I just heard this, from a lady. A housemaid, who had the 106 COTTON AND SLAVERY. reputation of being especially devout, was suspected by lier mistress of having stolen from ber bureau several trinkets. She was charged with the theft, and vociferously denied it. She was watched, and the articles discovered openly dis- played on her person as she went to church. She still, on her return, denied having them — was searched, and they were found in her pockets. When reproached by her mis- tress, and lectured on the wickedness of lying and stealing, she replied with the confident air of knowing the ground she stood upon, " Law, mam, don't say I's wicked ; ole Aunt Ann says it allers right for us poor coloured people to 'po- piate whatever of de wite folk's blessins de Lord puts in our way ;" old Aunt Ann being a sort of mother in the coloured Israel of the town. It is told me as a singular fact, that everywhere on the plantations, the agrarian notion has become a fixed point of the negro system of ethics : that the result of labour belongs of right to the labourer, and on this ground, even the reli- gious feel justified in using massa's " property for their own temporal benefit. This they term " taking," and it is never admitted to be a reproach to a man among them that he is chp;^ged with it, though " stealing," or taking from another than their master, and particularly from one another, is so. They almost universally pilfer from the household stores when they have a safe opportunity. Jefferson says of the slaves : "Whether furtner observation will or will not verify the conjecture, that nature has been less bountiful to them in the endowments of the head, I believe that in those of the heart she will have done them justice. That disposition to theft, with which they have been branded, must be ascribed to their situation, and not to any depravity of the moral sense. The man in whose fiivour no laws of property exist, probably feels liimself less bound to respect those made in favour of others. When arguing for ourselves, we lay it down as fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give VIRGINIA. 107 a reciprocation of right ; that without this, they are mere arbitrary rules, founded in force, and not in conscience ; and it is a problem which I give to the master to solve, whether tlie religious precepts against the violation of property were not framed for him as well as his slave ? and whether the slave may not as justifiably take a little from one who has taken all from him, as he may slay one who would slay him ? That a change of the relations in which a man is placed should change his ideas of moral right and wrong, is neither new, nor peculiar to the colour of the blacks. Homer tells us it was so, 2,600 years ago ; " ' Jove fixed it certain, that whatever day Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away.' " 108 COTTON AND SLAVERY. CHAPTEE lY. THE ECONOMY OF VIRGINIA. An Englishman will cross three thousand miles of sea, and, landing in our Free States, find, under a different sky and climate, a people speaking the same language, influenced by the same literature, giving allegiance to the same common law, and with not very dissimilar tastes, manners, or opinions, on the whole, to those of his own people. What most strikes him is an apparent indifference to conditions of living which he would at home call shabby. He will find men, however, at whose homes he will hardly see anything, either of sub- stance, custom, or manner, by which he would know that he was out of England, and if he asks how these manage to get waiters who do not smell of the stable ; and grooms who keep stirrups bright ; roofs which do not leak ; lawns which are better than stubble fields ; walks which are not grassy ; fences which do not need shoreing up ; staunch dogs ; clean guns ; strong boots and clothes that will go whole through a thicket; the true answer will be, by taking double the pains and paying double as much as would be necessary to secure the same results in England, and that few men are willing or able to do this. I make half a day's journey southward here, and I find, with an equal resemblance between the people and those I left, an indifference to conditions of hving, which Mrs. Stowe's Opheha describes as "shiftless," and which makes the same VIRGINIA. 109 sort of impression on my mind, as the state of things at the North does upon an EngHshman's. But, in this case, there has been no change in the skies ; I wear the same clothing, or if I come from the low sea-board and, going in-land, gain elevation, I need some better protection against cold. I also find exceptions ; how are they to be accounted for ? The first step does not seem difficult. In this well-pro^dded, hos- pitable, and most agreeable household, for instance, there are four times as many serv^ants as in one which would otherwise be as similar as possible to it at the North ; to say nothing of the governess, or of the New York plumber, who has been at work here for a month ; or of the doctor, who, having come fifteen miles to lance the baby's gums, stays of course to dine with us ; or of the Grerman, who I am told — such is the value of failroads even at a distance — left Eichmond only at nine o'clock last night, and having tuned the piano, will return in time for his classes there to-morrow ; or of the patent chain- pump pedlar, whose horses have been knocked up in crossing the swamp ; or of the weekly mail-carrier, who cannot go on till the logs which have floated olBP the bridge are restored. ,Mr. T. means soon, he tells me, to build a substantial bridge there, because his nearest respectable neighbours are in that .direction. His nearest neighbom^s on this side of the creek, by the way, he seems to regard with suspicion. They live in sohtary cabins, and he don't think they do a day's work in a year ; but they somehow manage to always have corn enough to keep themselves from starving, and as they certainly don't raise half enough for this, the supposition is that his negroes steal it and supply it in exchange for whisky. Clearly the negroes do get whisky, somewhere ; for even their preacher, who has been a capital blacksmith, and but for this vice would be worth B2500, was taken with delirium tremens last Sunday night, and set one of the outhouses on fire, so 110 COTTON AND SLAVERY. that tlie energetic Mr. T., who will have things right about his "place," has determined to get rid of him, and will have him sold for what he will fetch at the sheriff's sale at the County House to-morrow ; and Prior, the overseer, must go to Eichmond immediately, to see about a new blacksmith, for the plumber says that until one is got he must stand idle, and the ploughs are all needing repair. A less energetic man would keep old Joe, in spite of his vice, on account of his old wife and many children, and out of regard to the spiritual interests of his flock, for when not very drunk, old Joe is reckoned the best preacher in five counties. But Mr. T. is determined to hve like a gentleman ; he is not going to have the hoofs of his thorough-breds spoiled ; and he will have hot and cold water laid on ; and he tells Prior that if he can find a first-rate shoer, young, healthy, active, and strong, and handy at anything in the way of his trade, not to lose him, if he has to go as high as ^250, for the year; or, if necessary, he will buy such an one outright, at any fair price, if he can have him on trial for a month. If there is none in market, he must try to induce that Scotchman who hung the bells to come up again for a few days. " Treat him like a gentleman," he says, " and tell him he will be paid whatever he asks, and make as if it were a froKc." B 250 a year, and a man's board and clothing, with iron, coal, and, possibly, doctor's bills to be added, is certainly a high price to pay for the blacksmith's work of a single farm. This exceptional condition, then, it is obvious on the face of things, is maintained at an enormous expense, not only of money, but of nerve, time, temper, if not of humanity, or the world's judgment of humanity. There is much inherited wealth, a cotton plantation or two in Mississippi and a few slips of paper in a broker's ofiice in Wall Street, that account for the comfort of this Virginia farmer, as, with something of VIRGINIA. Ill the pride which apes humility, he Hkes to style himseE And after all he has no road on which he can drive his fine horses ; his physician supposes the use of chloric ether, as an ana- I sthetic agent, to be a novel and interesting subject of after- dinner eloquence ; he has no church within twenty miles, but one of logs, attendance on which is sm-e to bring on an attack of nem-algia with his wife, and where only an ignorant ranter of a different faith from his own preaches at irregular inter- vals ; there is no school which he is willing that his children should attend ; his daily papers come weekly, and he sees no books except such as he has especially ordered from Norton or Stevens. This being the exception, how is it with, the community as a whole ? As a whole, the community makes shift to live, some part tolerably, the most part wretchedly enough, with arrange- ments such as one might expect to find in a country in stress of war. Nothing whi^ih can be postponed or overlooked, with- out immediate serious inconvenience, gets attended to. One soon neglects to inquire why this is not done or that ; the answer is so certain to be that there is no proper person to r be got to do it without more trouble (or expense) than it is thought to be worth. Evidently habit reconciles the people to do without much, the permament want of which would seem likely to be intolerable to those who had it in possession. Nevertheless, they complain a good deal, showing that the e\iL is an increasing one. Verbal statements to the same effect as the following, written by a Yii'ginian to the ' Jom^nal of Coramerce,' are often heard. "Hundreds of farmers and planters, mill owners, tobacconists, cotton factories, iron works, steam-boat owners, master buUders, contractors, carpenters, sta^e proprietors, canal boat owners, railroad companies, and others, are, and have been short of hands these five years past, in Mary- 112 COTTON AND SLAVERY. land, Virginia, and the Carolinas. They pay ^150 or 5 200 a year each hand, and his board, and stealing, and if that hand be present or absent, sick or well, it is all the same. His clothes cost say 30 more, and in many cases the hirer has to pay his policy of life insurance.' For all that, labourers are being constantly sent away. I have not been on or seen a railroad train, departing south- ward, that it did not convey^a considerable number of the best class of negro labourers, in charge of a trader who was in- tending to sell them to cotton-planters. Thus it is evident that, great as is the need for more labourers here, there is a still greater demand for them to raise cotton ; and in order to supply this demand, the Virginians suffer the most extreme inconvenience. The wonder is, that their own demand for labour is not suppHed by free labourers. But it appears tliat where negro slavery has long existed, certain occupations are, by custom, assigned to the slaves, and a white man is not only reluctant to engage himself in those occupations, but is greatly disinclined to employ other whites in them. I have often asked : " Why do you not employ white men ?" (for this or that purpose for which slaves could not be procured ;) anr?, almost always, the reply has been given in a tone which indicated a little feeling, which, if I do not misap- prehend it, means that the employment of whites in duties upon which slaves are ordinarily employed is felt to be not only humiliating to the whites employed, but also to the employer. Nor is this difficulty merely a matter of sentiment. I have been answered : " Our poor white men will not do such work if they can very well help it, and they will do no more of it than they are obliged to. They will do a few days' work when it is necessary to provide themselves with the neces- saries of life, but they are not used to steady labour ; they work reluctantly, and will not bear driving ; they cannot be YIRGIXIA. 113 worked to advantage with slaves, and it is inconvenient to look after them, if you work them separately." And then, when I push the inquiries by asking, why not send North and get some of our labourers ? " WeU — the truth is, I have been used to driving niggers, and I don't think I could drive white men. I should not know how to manage them." So far as I understand the matter, then, Virginia is in this position : there are slaves enough in most of the country to mainly exclude white labourers from labouring men's occupations and to make the white people dependent on slave-labom- for certain things ; but the slaves being drawn off almost as fast as they grow up to grow cotton in the more Southern States, and those which remain hem^ mana£:^ed with almost as much recjard for this demand as for the local demand for labour, this local demand is not systematically provided for ; and even if there were the intention to provide for it, there are no sufficient means to do so, as the white population increases in number much more rapidly than the slave.* I do not mean that no whites ire employed in the ordinary occupations of slaves in Virginia. In some parts there are few or no slaves, and the White people who live in these parts, of com'se do not Hve .vithout having work done ; but even in these districts it is lardly possible to find men or women, who are wilhng and -ble to serve others well and faithfully, on wages. In some arts white working men also drift in slowly fi*om the Free states, but they are too few and scattered to perceptibly 'ffect the habits of the people and customs of the country, * From 1850 to 18'30, the rate of increase of the free population has been per cent. ; of the slave, 3-88. (From a recent official statement of the msus Office.) A somewhat parallel case to that of the Virginia slaveholder is at of a breeder of blooded stock. A Flying Dutchman is used upon occasion as charger, but under no pressuie of the harvest will you find him put before the it. I have more than once heard the phi-ase used,^" Niggers are worth too ich " to be used in such and such work. Instances of this are given heieafter. VOL. I. I 114 COTTON AND SLAVER T. while they rapidly adapt themselves to these habits and customs. Thus it is questionable if as yet they do not add more to the general demand for labour than they supply to reduce it. Still, it is where slaves remain in the greatest numbers, proportionately to the whites, that the scarcity of labourers, or what is pi'acticaily the same thing, the cost of getting desirable work done, is most obvious. Schools, churches, roads, bridges, fences, houses, stables, are all more frequent, and in better repair, where the proportion of whites to slaves- is large, than in the '* negro counties," as some are popularl; designated, from the preponderance of the slave populatioi in them. I find this observation confirmed by an examinatior of the Census returns and other documents. In the Xorth-western counties, Cabell, Mason, Brooke, an^ Tyler, in or adjoining which there are no large towns, but ; free labouring population, vdth. slaves in ratio to the freemei as one to fifteen only, the value of land is over seven dollar and three quarters an acre. In Southampton, SmTey, James Town and New Kent, i: which the slave population is as 1 to 2*2, the value of land i but little more than half as much — ^4.50 an acre. The value of land of com^se rises with its availability t contribute to the wants of men, and it can only be mau available as labom- can be applied to it. In S'UTey, Prince George, Charles City, and James, adjoii ing counties on James Piiver, and originally having some ( the most productive soil in the State, and now supplied wit the public conveniences which have accrued in two hundre years of occupation by a civilized and Christian communit; the number of slaves being at present, to that of whites ; 1 to 1*9, the value of land is but S 6 an acre. In Fairfax, another of the tirst settled counties, and VIRGINIA. 115 which, tTventy-years ago, land was even less in value than in the James Kiver counties, it is now become worth twice as much. The slave population, once greater than that of whites, has been reduced by emigration and sale, till there are now less than half as many slaves as whites. In the place of slaves has come another sort of people. The change which has taken place, and the cause of it, is thus simply described in the Agricultural Eeport of the County to the Commissioner of Patents.* "In appearance, the county is so chang^ed in many parts, that a travel- ler who passed over it ten years ago would not now recognize it. Thou- ■ sands and thousands of acres had been cultivated in tobacoo by the former proprietors, would not pay the cost, and were abandoned as worthless, and became covered with a wilderness of pines. These lands have been pur- chased by Northern emigrants ; the large tracts divided and subdivided and cleared of pines ; and neat farm-houses and barns, with smiling fields of grain and grass in the season, salute tlie delighted gaze of the beholder. Ten years ago it was a mOoted question wliether Fairfax lands could be .made productive ; and if so, would they pay the cost ? This problem has been satisfoctorily solved by many, and in consequence of the above altered state of things school-houses and churches have doubled in number." The following substantiates what I have said of the inavail- abihty of the native whites for supplying the place of the negroes exported to the cotton plantations. From the Patent Office Report for 1847. " As to the price of labour, our mechanics charge from one to two lollars a day. As to agricultural labour, we have none. Our poor are )Oor because they icill not tcorh, therefore are seldom employed. " Chas. Yanx'EY, "Buckingham Co., Virginia" The sentence, "As to agricultural labour, we have none," lust mean no free labom', the number of slaves in this county -eing according to the Census 8,161, or^nearly 3,000 more I * See ' Patent Office Report, 1852.'- ' I 2 116 COTTON AND SLAVERY. than tlie wliole wliite population. There are also 250 free negroes in the county. Vrom a Correspondent of the * American Agriculturist,' Feb. 14, 1855. " As to labourers, we work chiefly slaves, not because they are cheaper, but rather because they are the only reliable labour we can get. The whites here engage to work for less price than the blacks can be got for ; yet they will not work well, and rarely work out the time specified. Tf any of your friends come here and wish to work whites, I would advise them by all means to bring them with them ; for our white labourers are far inferior to our blacks, and our black labour is far inferior to what we read and hear of your labourers. " C. G. G. Albemarle Co., Virginia.'' In Albemarle there are over thirteen thousand slaves to less than twelve thousand whites. Among the native Virginians I find most inuolligent men, very ready to assert that slavery is no disadvantage to Vir- ginia, and, as necessary to the maintenance of this assertion, that slave-labour is no dearer than free-labour, that is, than free-labour would be, if slavery did not exist. It is even said — and, as I have shown, it is practically true, at least wherever slavery has not in a great measure withdrawn from the field — that white labour cannot live in competition with slave-labour. In other words, the holder of slave-labour controls the local market for labour, and the cost of slave-labour fixes the cost of everything which is produced by slave-labour. But it is a mistake which the Virginians generally make, when they jump from this to the conclusion that slave-labour is therefore cheaper under all circumstances than free-labour. It is evident that slaves are valuable for another purpose than to supply the local demand for their labour, namely, to supply the demand of the cotton planter ; consequently those slaves which are employed to supply the local demand, must be employed either at a loss, or at what they are worth to the cotton planter. Whether this is more or less than free- VIRGINIA. 117 labour vvould cost if the field were open, can onl^r be ascer- tained by comparing tbe cost of slave-labour in Yirginia with the cost of free-labour in the Free States. An exact comparison on a large scale I cannot find the means of making, but I have taken a great many notes which lead me with confidence to a few important general conclusions. Wages. — Many thousand slaves have been hired in Eastern Virginia during the time of my visit. The wages paid for able working men — sound, healthy, in good condition, and with no especial vices, from twenty to thirty years old — are from ^110 to S 140 ; the average, as nearly as I can ascertain, from very extended inquiry, being g 120 per year, with board and lodg- ing, and certain other expenses. These wages must represent exactly the cost of slave-labour, because any considerations which would prevent the owner of a slave disposing of his labour for those wagesr, when the labour for his oa\ti purposes would not be worth as much, are so many hindrances upon , the fi-ee disposal of his property, and thereby deduct from its actual value, as measured with money. As the large majority of slaves are employed in agricultm'al labour, and many of those, hired at the prices I have men- . tioned, are taken directly from the labom- of the farm, and are skilled in no other, these wages represent the cost of agricul- tural labour in Eastern Yirginia. In New York, the usual wages for similar men, if Ameri- cans, white or black, are exactly the same in the money part ; for Irish or German labourers the most common wages are SlO per month, for summer, and B8 per month, for winter, or from g96 to ^120 a year, the average being about BIOS. The hirer has, in addition to paying wages for the slave, to -ed and to clothe liim ; the free labourer requires also to be '118 COTTON AND SLAVERY. boarded, but not to be clothed by his employer. The opinion is universal in Yirginia, that the slaves are better fed than the Northern labourers. This is, however, a mistake, and we must consider that the board of the Northern labourer would cost at least as much more as the additional cost of clothing to the slave. Comparing man with man, with reference simply to equality of muscular power and endm'ance, my final judg- ment is, that the wages for common labourers are twenty-five per cent, higher in Virginia than in New York. Loss from clisahilUy of the labourer, — This to the employer of free labom^ers need be nothing. To the slave-master it is of varying consequence : sometimes small, often exces- sively embarrassing, and always a subject of anxiety and sus- picion. I have not yet made the inquiry on any plantation where as many as twenty negroes are employed together, that I have not found one or more of the field-hands not at work, on account of some illness, strain, bruise, or wound, of which he or she was complaining ; and in such cases the proprietor or overseer has, I think, never failed to express his suspicion that the invalid was really as well able to work as anyone else on the plantation. It is said to be nearly as difiicult to form a satisfactory diagnosis of negroes' disorders as it is of infants', because their imagination of symptoms is so vi^dd, and because not the smallest reliance is to be placed on their accounts of what they have felt or done. If a man is really ill, he fears lest Le should be thouglit to be simulating, and therefore exaggerates aU his pains, and locates them in whatever he supposes to be the most vital parts of his system. Frequently the invalid slaves neglect or refuse to use the remedies prescribed for their recovery. They conceal piUs, for instance, under their tongue, and declare that they have swallowed them, when, from their producing no effect, it will VIRGINIA. 119 , be afterwards evident tliat tliey liave not. This general custom I heard ascribed to habit, acquired when they were not very ill, and were loth to be made quite well enough to have to go to work again. Amusing incidents, illustratmg this difficulty, I have heard narrated, show^ing that the slave rather enjoys getting a severe wound that lays him up : — he has his hand crushed by the fall of a piece of timber, and after the pain is alleviated, is heard to exclaim, " Bress der Lord — der haan b'long to masser — don't reckon dis chile got no more corn to hoe dis yaar, no how." Mr. H., of North Carolina, observed to me, in relation to' this difficulty, that a man who had had much experience with , negroes could generally tell, with a good deal of certainty, by , their tongue, and their pulse, and their general aspect, whether they were really ill or not. " Last year," said he, " I hired out one of my negroes to a railroad contractor. I suppose that he found he had to worl: harder than he would on the plantation, and became discon- tented, and one night he left the camp without asking leave. -The next day he stopped at a public-house, and told the ipeople he had fallen sick working on the railroad, and was going home to his master. They suspected he had run away, .and, as he had no pass, they arrested him and sent him to the jail. In the night the sherift' sent me word that there was a boy, who said he belonged to me, in the jail, and he ' jwas very sick indeed, and I had better come and take care of ;him. I suspected how it was, and, as I was particularly engaged, I did not go near him till towards night, the next Iday. When I came to look at him, and heard his story, I . Ifelt quite sure that he was not sick ; but, as he pretended to ,be suffering very much, I told the sheriff to give him plenty of salts and senna, and to be caretul that he did not get much 120 COTTON AND SLAVERY. of anything to eat. The next day I got a letter from the contractor, telling me that my nigger had run away, v/ithout any cause. So I rode over to the jail again, and told them to continue the same treatment until the boy got a good deal worse or a good deal better. Well, the rascal kept it up for a week, all the time groaning so, you'd think he couldn't hve many hours longer ; but, after he had been in seven days, he all of a sudden said he'd got well, and wanted something to eat. As soon as I heard of it, I sent them word to give him a good paddling,* and handcuff him, and send him back to the raih'oad. I had to pay them for taking up a runaway, besides the sheriff's fees, and a week's board of the boy to the county." But the same gentleman admitted that he had sometimes been mistaken, and had made men go to work when they afterwards proved to be really ill ; therefore, when one of his people told him he was not able to work, he usually thought, i' Yery likely he'll be all the better for a day's rest, whether he's really ill or not," and would let him off without being particular in his examination. Lately he had been getting a new overseer, and when he was engaging him, he told him that this was his way. The overseer replied, " It's my way, too, now ; it didn't use to be, but I had a lesson. There was a nigger one day at Mr. 's who was sulky and complain- ing ; he said he couldn't work. I looked at his tongue, and it was right clean, and I thought it was nothing but damned sulkiress, so I paddled him, and made him go to work; but, two days after, he was under ground. He was a good eight hundred dollar nigger, and it was a lesson to me about taming possums, that I ain't agomg to forget in a hurry." The liability of women, especially, to disorders and irre- gularities which cannot be detected by exterior symptoms, but * Not something to eat, but punishment with an instrument like a ferule. YIRGIXIA. 121 which may be easily aggravated into serious complaints, renders many of them nearly valueless for work, because of the ease with which they can impose upon their ow^ners. " The women on a plantation," said one extensive Virginian slave- owner to me, " will hardly earn their salt, after they come to the breeding age : they don't come to the field, and you go to the quarters, and ask the old nurse w^hat's the matter, and she says, 'Oh, she's not well, master ; she not fit to wwk, sir;' and what can you do ? You have to take her w^ord for it that ' something or other is the matter w^th her, and you dare not set her to w^ork ; and so she lay up till she feels like taking the air again, and plays the lady at your expense." I -was on a plantation where a w^oman had been excused from any sort of labour for more than t^vo years, on the sup- position that she was dying of phthisis. At last the overseer discovered that she was employed as a milliner and dress- maker by all the other coloured ladies of the vicinity ; and upon taldng her to the house, it was found that she had acquired a remarkable skill in these vocations. She was hired out the next year to a fashionable di'ess-maker in town, at ( handsome wages ; and as, after that, she did not again "raise blood," it was supposed that when she had done so before, it had been by artificial means. Such tricks every army and navy surgeon is familiar with. The interruption and disarrangement of operations of la- bour, occasioned by slaves "running avray," frequently causes great inconvenience and loss to those who employ them. It is said to often occur when no immediate motive can be guessed ■at for it — when the slave has been well treated, w^ell fed, and not over- worked ; and when he will be sure to suffer hardship 'from it, and be subject to severe punishment on his retui'n, or if he is caught. • This is often mentioned to illustrate^ the ingratitude and 122 COTTON AXD SLAVERY, especial dejoravity of the African race. I shonlcl suspect it to be, if it cannot be otherwise accounted for, the natural in- stinct of freedom in a man, working out capriciously, as the wild instincts of domesticated beasts and birds sometimes do. But the learned Dr. Cartwright, of the University of Louisiana, believes that slaves are subject to a peculiar form of mental disease, termed by him DrajJetomcmia, which, like a malady that cats are liable to, manifests itself by an irre- strainable propensity to run away ; and in a work on the diseases of negroes, highly esteemed at the South for its patriotism and erudition, he advises planters of the proper preventive and curative measures to be taken for it. He asserts that, "with the advantage of proper medical advice, strictly followed, this troublesome practice of running away, that many negroes have, can be almost entirely pre- vented." Its symptoms and the usual empirical practice on the plantations are described : " Before negroes run away, unless they are frightened or panic-struck, they become sulky and dissatisfied. The cause of this sulkiness and dissatis- faction should be inquired into and removed, or they are apt to run away or fall into the negro consumption." When sulky or dissatisfied without cause, the experience of those having most practice with drapetomania, the Doctor thinks, has been in favour of "whipping them out of it.''' It is vulgarly called, "wdiipping the devil out of themy' he afterwards informs us. Another droll sort of " indisposition," thought to be pecu- liar to the slaves, and which must greatly affect their value, as compared with free labourers, is described by Dr. Cart- wright, as follows :■ — " Dysesthesia J^thiopica, or Hebetude of Mind and Obtuse Sensibility \ of Body. * *•* From the careless movements of the individuals affected' with this complaint, they are apt to do much mischief, which appears as if intentional, but is mostly owing to the stupidness of mind and insensibility VIRGINIA. 123 of the nerves iiiclueed by the disease. Thus they break, waste, any destroy everything they handle — abuse horses and cattle — tear, burn, or rend their own clothing, and, paying no attention to the rights of property, steal others to replace what they have destroyed. They wander about at .night, and keep in a half-nodding state by day. They slight their work — ,cutup corn, cane, cotton, and tobacco, when hoeing it, as if for pure mis- chief. They raise disturbances with their overseers, and among their fellow-servants, without cause or motive, and seem to be insensible to pain , when subjected to punishment. * * * " When left to himself, the negro indulges in his natural disposition to idleness and sloth, and does not take exercise enough to expand his lungs and vitalize his blood, but dozes oat a miserable existence in the midst of iilth and uncleanliness, being too indolent, and having too little energy of mind, to provide for himself proper food and comfortable clotliing and lodging. The consequence is, that the blood becomes so highly carbon- ized and deprived of oxygen that it not only becomes unfit to stimulate ithe brain to energy, but unfit to stimulate the nerves of sensation distri- buted to the body. * * * "Tliisisthe disease caWcd Dysesthesia (a Greek term expressing the lull or obtuse sensation tliat always attends the complaint). When roused ,:rom sloth by the stimulus of hunger, he takes anything he can lay his lands on, and tramples on the rights as well as on the property of otiiers, vith perfect indiiference. When driven to labour by the compulsive )0wer of the white man, he performs the task assigned to him in a head- ong, careless manner, treading down witli his feet or cutting witli his hoe ;he plants he is put to cultivate — breaking the tools he works with, and ;.poiliug everytliing he touches that can be injured by careless handling, •ience the overseers call it 'rascality,' supposing that the mischief is utentionally done. * * * " The term, ' rascality,' given to this disease by overseers, is founded on n erroneous hypothesis, and leads to an incorrect empirical treatment, vhich seldom or never cures it." There are many complaints described in Dr. Cartwright's reatise, to which the negroes, in slavery, seem to be pecu- iarly subject. "More fatal than any other is congestion of the lungs, peripneumonia otlia, often called cold plague, etc. * * * " The Framhxsia, Piam, or Yaws, is a contagious disease, communicable y contact among those who greatly neglect cleanliness. It is supposed ' be communicable, in a modified form, to the white race, among whom resembles pseudo syphilis, or some disease of the nose, throat, or rjTix. * * * ^ " Negro-consumption, a disease almost unknown to medical men of the 124 COTTON AND SLAVERY. Nortlieni States and of Europe, is also sometimes fearfully prevalent among the slaves. ' It is of importance,' says the Doctor, ' to know the pathognomic signs in its early stages, not only in regard to its treatment, but to detect impositions, as negroes afflicted with this complaint arc often for sale ; the acceleration of the pulse, on exercise, incapacitates them for labour, as they quickly give out, and have to leave their work. This induces their owners to sell them, although they may not know the cause of their inability to labour. Many of the negroes brought South, for sale, are in the incipient stages of this disease ; they are found to be inefficient labourers, and are sold in consequence thereof. The etfect of superstition — a firm belief that he is poisoned or conjured — upon the patient's mind, already in a morbid state (dysassthesia), and his health atfected from hard usage, over-tasking or exposure, want of wholesome food, good clothing, warm, comfortable lodging, with the distressing idea (sometimes) that he is an object of hatred or dislike, both to his master or fellow-servants, and has no one to befriend him, tends directly to generate that erythism of mind which is the essential cause of negro-consumption.' * * * ' Kemodies should be assisted by removing the original cause of the dissatisfaction or trouble of mind, and by using every means to make the patient coDifortable, satisfied, and happy.' " Longing for liome generates a distinct malady, known to physicians as Nostalgia, and there is a suggestive analogy between the treatment commonly employed to cure it and that recommended in this last advice of Dr. Cartwright. Discipline. — Under the slave system of labour, discipline must always be maintamed by physical power. A lady New York, spending a winter in a Southern city, had a hired slave-servant, who, one day, refused outright to perform some ordinary light domestic duty required of her. On the lady's gently remonstrating with her, she immediately replied: " You can't make me do it, and I won't do it : I aint afeard of you whippin' me." The servant was right ; the lady could not whip her, and was too tender-hearted to call in a man, oi to send her to the guard-house to be whipped, as is th( custom with Southern ladies, when their patience is exhausted imder such circumstances. She endeavoured, by kindnes, and by appeals to the girl's good sense, to obtain a mora VIRGINIA. 125 control over her ; but, after suffering continual annoyance and inconvenience, and after an intense trial of lier feelings, for some time, she was at length obliged to go to her owner, and beg him to come and take her away from the house, on I any terms. It was no better than having a lunatic or a mis- chievous and pilfering monomaniac quartered on her.* But often when courage and physical power, with the strength of the militia force and the army of the United States, if required, at the back of the master, are not v/ant- ing, there are a great variety of circumstances that make a resort to punishment inconvenient, if not impossible. Eeally well-trained, accomphshed, and docile house-servants are seldom to be purchased or hired at the South, though I they are found in old wealthy families rather oftener than first-rate Enghsh or French servants are at the North. It is, doubtless, a convenience to have even moderately good servants who cannot, at any time of their improved value or your necessity, demand to have their pay increased, or who cannot be dra^Ti away from you by prospect of smaller demands and kinder treatment at your neighbour's ; but I believe few of those who are incessantly mm-mming against this healthy operation of God's good law of supply and demand would be willing to purchase exemption from it, at the ■ price with which the masters and mistresses of the South do. They would pay, to get a certain amount of work done, three or four times as much, to the owner of the best sort of hired slaves, as they do to the commonest, stupidest Irish domestic drudges at the North, though the nominal wages by the week or year, in Virginia, are but httle more than in New York. ♦ The Richmond American has a letter from Raleigh, N.C., dated Sept. 18, which says : '* On yesterday morning, a beautiful young lady, I\Iiss Virginia Frost, daughter of Austin Frost, an engineer on the Petersburg and Weldon Railroad, ami residing in this city, was shot by a negro girl, and killed instantly. Cause — re- proving her for insolent language." \ 126 COTTON AND SLAVERY. The number of servants usually found in a Southern family, of any pretension, always amazes a Northern lady. In one that I have visited, there are exactly three negroes to each white, the negroes being employed solely in the house. (A Southern lady, of an old and wealthy family, who had been for some time visiting a friend of mine in New York, said to her, as she was preparing to return home : "I cannot tell you how much, after being in your house so long, I dread to go home, and to have to take care of our servants again. We have a much smaller family of whites than you, but we have twelve servants, and yom^ two accomplish a great deal more, and do their work a great deal better than our twelve. You think your girls are very stupid, and that they give yon much trouble : but it is as nothing. There is hardly one of our servants that can be trusted to do the simplest work without being stood over. If I order a room to be cleaned, or a fire to be made in a distant chamber, I never can be sure I am obeyed unless I go there and see for myself. If I send a girl out to get anything I want for preparing the dinner, she is as liSely as not to forget what is wanted, and not to come back till after the time at which dinner should be ready. A hand-organ in the street will draw all my girls out of the house ; and while it remains near us I have no more com- mand over them than over so many monkeys. The parade of a military company has sometimes entirely prevented me from having any dinner cooked ; and when the servants, standing in the square looking at the soldiers, see my husband coming after them, they only laugh, and run away to the other side, like playful childi-en.* And, when I reprimand them, they only say they don't mean to do anything wrong, * In the city of Columbia, S.C., the police are required to prevent the negroes from running in this way after the military. Any negro neglecting to leave the vicinity of a parade, when ordered by a policeman or any military officer, is re- quired, by the ordinance, to be whipped at the guard-house. VIRGIXIA. 127 or they won't do it again, all the time laughing as though it was all a joke. They don't mind it at all. They are just as playful and careless as any wilful child ; and they never will do any work if you don't compel them.") The slave employer, if he finds he has been so unfortunate as to hire a sulky servant, who cannot be made to work to his advantage, has no remedy but to solicit from his OTVTier a de- duction from the price he has agreed to pay for his laboui-, on the same ground that one would from a livery-stable keeper, if he had engaged a horse to go a journey, but found that he was not strong or skilful enough to keep him upon the road. But, if the slave is the property of his employer, and becomes " rascally," the usual remedv is that which the veterinary surgeon recommended when he was called upon for advice how to cure a jibing horse : " Sell him, my lord." " Kascals " are " sent South " fi'om Virginia, for the cui'e or alleviation of their complaint, in much greater numbers than consumptives are from the more Noi'thern States. " How do you manage, then, when a man misbehaves, or is sick ?" I have been often asked by Southerners, in discus- smg this question. If he is sick, I simply charge against him every half day of the time he is off work, and deduct it from his wages. If he is careless, or refuses to do what in reason I demand of him, I discharge him, paying him wages to the time he leaves. With new men in whom I have not confidence, I make a written agreement, before witnesses, on engaging them, that will permit me to do this. As for " rascality," I never had but one case of anything approaching to what you call so. A man insolently contradicted me in the field : I told him to leave his job and go to the house, took hold and finished it myself, then went to the house, made out a Avritten statement of account, counted out the balance in money due to 128 COTTON AOT) SLAVERY. liim, gave liim the statement and the money, and told him he must go. He knew that he had failed of his duty, and that the law would sustain me, and we parted in a fiiendly manner, he expressing regret that his temper had driven him from a situation which had been agreeable and satisfactory to him. The probability is, that this single experience educated him so far that his next employer would have no occasion to com- plain of his "rascality;" and I very much doubt if any amount of corporeal punishment would have improved his temper in the least. " SogeringJ' — That slaves have to be " humoured " a great deal, and that tJiey very frequently cannot be made to do their master's will, I have seen much evidence. Not that they often directly refuse to obey an order, but when they are directed to do anything for which they have a disinclination, they undertake it in such a way that the desired result is sure not to be accomplished. They cannot be driven by fear of punishment to do that which the labourers in free commu- 1 nities do cheerfully from their sense of duty, self-respect, or regard for their reputation and standing with their employer. | A gentleman who had some free men in his emplo^Tnent in Virginia, that he had procured in New York, told me that he had been astonished, when a dam that- he had been building began to give w^ay in a fi-eshet, to see how much more readily than negroes they would obey his orders, and do their best without orders, running into the water waist-deep, in mid-winter, without any hesitation or grumbling. The manager of a large candle-fuctory in London, in whicli the labourers are treated with an unusual degree of confidence and generosity, wi'ites thus in a report to his directors : — " The present year promises to be a ver)'^ good one as regards profit, in consequence oi' the enoiinous increase in the demand for caudles. Inu VTRGDsIA. 129 mere driving of the men and boys, by ourselves and those in authority under us, would have produced the sudden and very great increase of manufacture, necessary for keeping pace with this demand. It has been " effected only by the hearty good-will with which the factory has worked, the men and boys making the great extra exertion, which they saw to be necessary to prevent our getting hopelessly in arrears with the orders, as heartily as if the question had been, how to avert some difficulty threaten- ing themselves personally. One of the foremen remarked with truth, a few days back : * To look on them, one would think each was engaged in , a little business of his own, so as to have only himself affected by the results of his work.' " A farmer in Lmcolnsliire, England, told me that once, during an extraordinary harvest season, he had a number of labourers at work without leaving the field or taking any repose for sixty hours — he himself working with them, and eating and drinking only with them during all the time. Such services men may give voluntarily, from their own regard to the value of property to be saved by it, or for the purpose of establishing their credit as worth good wages ; but to require it of slaves would be intensely cruel, if not actually impos- sible. A man can work excessively on his own impulse as much easier than he can be driven to by another, as a borse travels easier la going towards his accustomed stable ':han in going from it. I mean — and every man who has ever served as a sailor or a soldier will know that it is no imagi- nary effexjt — that the actual fatigue, the waste of bodily energy, he expenditure of the physical capacity, is greater in one iase than the other. Sailors and soldiers both, are led by certain inducements to >lace themselves within certain limits, and for a certain time, oth defined by contract, in a condition resembling, in many articulars, that of slaves ; and, although they are bound by leir voluntary contract and by legal and moral conside- itions to obey orders, the fact that force is also used to ?cure their obedience to their officers, scarcely ever fails to VOL. I. K 130 COTTON AND SLAVERY. produce in them tlie identical vices which are complained of in slaves. They obey the letter, but defeat the intention of orders that do not please them ; they are improvident, waste- ful, reckless : they sham illness, and as Dr. Cartwright gives specific medical appellations to discontent, laziness, and rascality, so among sailors and soldiers, when men suddenly find themselves ill and unable to do their duty in times of peculiar danger, or when unusual labom- is required, they are humorously said to be snffering under an attack of the powder- fever, the cape-fever, the ice-fever, the coast-fever, or thg reef- ing-fever. The counteracting influences to these vices, which it is the first effort of every good ofiicer to foster, are, first, regard to duty ; second, patriotism ; third, esjprit du corp, or professional pride ; fourth, self-respect, or personal pride ; fifth, self-interest, hope of promotion, or of bounty, or of privileges in mitigation of their hard service, as reward for excellence. Things are never quickly done at sea, unless they are done with a will, or " cheerly," as the sailor's word is — that is, cheerfully. An army is never effective in the field when depressed in its morale. None of these promptings to excellence can be operative, except in a very low degree, to counteract the indolent and vicious tendencies of the Slavery, much more pm-e than the slavery of the army or the ship, by which the exertions of the Virginia labourer are obtained for his employer. Incidents, trifling in themselves, constantly betray to 2 stranger what must be the necessary consequences. The cata- strophe of one such occurred since I began to write this letter I requested a fire to be made in my room, as I was goim out this morning. On my return, I found a grand fire— tb( room door having been closed upon it, and, by the way, I hac to obtain assistance to open it, the lock being " out of order.' Just now, while I was writing, down tumbled upon the floor VIBGINIA. 131 and rolled away close to the valance of the bed, half a hod- full of ignited coal, which had been so piled up on the grate, and left without a fender or any guard, that this result was almost inevitable. And such carelessness of servants you have momentarily to notice. But the constantly-occurring delays, and the waste of time and labour that you encounter everywhere, are most annoying and provoking to a stranger. At an hotel, for instance, you go to your room and find no conveniences for washing ; ring and ring again, and hear the office-keeper ring again and again. At length two servants appear together at your door, get orders, and go away. A quarter of an hour afterwards, perhaps, one returns with a pitcher of water, but no towels ; and so on. Yet as the servants seem anxious to please, it can only result from want of system and order. Until the negro is big enough for his labour to be plainly profitable to his master, he has no training to application or method, but only to idleness and carelessness. Before the children arrive at a working age, they hardly come under the notice of their owner. An inventory of them is taken on the plantation at Christmas ; and a planter told me that some- times they escaped the attention of the overseer and were not returned at all, till twelve or thirteen years old. The only whipping of slaves I have seen in Virginia, has been of these wild, lazy children, as they are being broke in to work. They cannot be depended upon a minute, out of sight. You will see how difficult it would be, if it were attempted, to eradicate the indolent, careless, incogitant habits so formed in youth. But it is not systematically attempted, and the influences that continue to act upon a slave in the same direction, cultivating every quality at variance with industry, precision, forethought, and providence, are innumerable. It is not wonderful that the habits of the whole community K 2 132 COTTON AND SLAVERY. should be influenced by, and be made to accommodate to these habits of its labourers. It irresistibly affects the whole in- dustrial character of the people. You may see it in the habits and manners of the free white mechanics and trades- people. All of these must have dealings or be in competition with slaves, and so have their standard of excellence made low, and become accustomed to, until they are content with slight, false, unsound workmanship. You notice in all classes, vagueness in ideas of cost and value, and injudicious and un- necessary expenditure of labour by a thoughtless manner of setting about work.* For instance, I noticed a rivet loose in my umbrella, as I was going out from my hotel dming a shower, and stepped into an adjoining shop to have it repaned. " I can't do it in less than half an hour, sir, and it will be worth a quarter," said the locksmith, replying to mquiries. " I shouldn't think it need take you so long — it is merely a rivet to be tightened." " I shall have to take it all to pieces, and it will take me all of half an hour." " I don't think you need take it to pieces." *' Yes, I shall — there's no other way to do it." " Then, as I can't well wait so long, I will not trouble you with it ;" and I went back to the hotel, and with the fire-poker did the work myself, in less than a minute, as well as he could have done it in a week, and went on my way, siaving hn.lf an horn- and quarter of a dollar, like a "Yankee." Yirginians laugh at us for such things : but it is because they are mdifferent to these fractions, or, as they say, above regarding them, that they cannot do their own business with the rest of the world ; and all their commerce, as they are * A ship's officer told me that he had noticed that it took just about three times as long to have the same repairs made in Norfolk that it did in New York. VrRGINIA. 133 absurdly complaining, only goes to enrich Northern men. A man forced to labour under their system is morally driven to indolence, carelessness, indifference to the results of skill, heedlessness, inconstancy of purpose, improvidence, and extravagance. Precisely the opposite quahties are those which are encouraged, and inevitably developed in a man who has to make his living, and earn all" his comfort by his voluntarily-directed labour. " It is with dogs," says an authority on the subject, "as it is with horses ; no w^ork is so well done as that which is done cheerfully." And it is with men, both black and white, as it is with horses and with dogs ; it is even more so, because the strength and cunning of a man is less adapted to being: " broken " to the will of another than that of either dogs or horses. Work accomplished in a given time. — Mr. T. K. Griscom, of Petersburg, Yhginia, stated to me, that he once took accu- rate accoimt of the labour expended in harvesting a large field of wheat; and the result was that one quarter of an acre a day was secured for each able hand engaged in cra- dling, raking, and binding. The crop w^as light, yielding not over six bushels to the acre. In New York a gang of fair cradlers and binders would be expected, under ordinary circumstances, to secure a crop of wheat, yielding from twenty to thirty bushels to the acre, at the rate of about two acres a day for each man. Mr. Griscom formerly resided in New Jersey ; and since Hving in Yirginia has had the superintendence of very large agricultm-al operations, conducted with slave-labour. After I had, in a letter, intended for publication, made use of this testimony, I called upon him to ask if he would object to my giving his name with it. He was so g'^d as to permit me to 134 COTTON AND SLAVERY. do SO, and said tliat I might add that tlie ordinary waste in harvesting wheat in Virginia, through the carelessness of the negroes, beyond that which ' occurs in the hands of ordinary Northern labourers, is equal in value to what a Northern farmer would often consider a satisfactory profit on his crop. He also wished me to say that it was his deliberate opinion, formed not without much and accm-ate observation, that four Virginia slaves do not, when engaged in ordinary agricultural operations, accomplish as much, on an average, as one ordinary free farm labourer in New Jersey. Mr. Grriscom is well known at Petersbm^g as a man remark- able for accuracy and preciseness ; and no man's judgment on this subject could be entitled to more respect. Another man, who had superintended labour of the same character at the North and in Virginia, whom I questioned closely, agreed entirely with Mr. Griscom, bdieving that four negroes had to be supported on every farm in the State to accomphsh the same work which was ordinarily done by one free labourer in New York. A clergyman from Connecticut, who had resided for many years in Vhginia, told me that what a slave expected to spend a day upon, a Northern labourer would, he was confident, usually accomplish by eleven o'clock in the morning. In a letter on this subject, most of the facts given in which have been already narrated in this volume, written from Vir- ginia to the New York Times, I expressed the conviction that, at the most, not more than one-half as much labour was ordinarily accomplished in Virginia by a certain number of slaves, in a given time, as by an equal number of free laboiu'ers in New York. The publication of this letter induced a num- ber of persons to make public the conclusions of their own experience or observations on this subject. So far as I know, these, in every case, sustained my conclusions, or, if any doubt VIEGDs'IA. 135 ^as expressed, it was tliat I had under-estimated the superior economy of free-labour. As affording evidence more valuable than my own on this important point, from the better oppor- tunities of forming sound judgment, which a residence at dif- ferent times, in both Yhginia and a Free State had given the writers, I have reprinted, in an Appendix, two of these letters, ! together with a quantity of other testimony from Southern I witnesses on this subject, which I beg the reader, who has any doubt of the correctness of my information, not to neglect. " Driving." — On mentioning to a gentleman in Yirginia (who beheved that slave-labour was better and cheaper than free-labour), Mr. Griscom's observation, he rephed : that with- out doubting the correctness of the statement of that particular instance, he was sm-e that if four men did not harvest more than an acre of wheat a day, they could not have been well " driven." He knew that, if properly driven, threatened with punishment, and punished if necessary, negroes would do as much work as it was possible for any white man to do. The , same gentleman, however, at another time, told me that negroes were seldom punished ; not oftener, he presumed, than apprentices were, at the North ; that the driving of them was generally left to overseers, who were the laziest and most worthless dogs in the world, frequently not demanding higher wages for their services than one of the negroes whom they were given to manage might be hhed for. Another gentle- man told me that he would rather, if the law would permit it, have some of his negroes for overseers, than any white man he had ever been able to obtain in that capacity. Another planter, whom I requested to examine a letter on the subject, that I had prepared for the Times, that he might, if he could, refute my calculations, or give me any facts of an opposite character, after reading it said : " The truth is, that. iS6 COTTON AND SLAVERY. in general, a slave does not do half the work he easily might ; and which, by being harsh enough with him, he can be made to do. "When I came into possession of my plantation, I soon found the overseer then upon it was good for nothing, and told him I had no farther occasion for his services : I then . went to driving the negroes myself. In the morning, when I went out, one of them came up to me and asked what work he should go about. I told him to go into the swamp and cut some wood. * Well, massa,' said he, s'pose you wants me to do kordins we's been use to doin' ; ebery nigger cut a cord a day.' * A cord ! that's what you have been used to doing, is it ?' said I. ' Yes, massa, dat's wot dey always makes a nigger do roun'. heah — ^a cord a day, dat s allers de task.' ' Well, now, old man,'* said I, ' you go and cut me two cords to-day.' ' Oh, massa ! two cords ! Nobody couldn* do dat. Oh ! massa, dat's too hard ! Nebber heard o' nobody's cuttin' more'n a cord o' wood in a day, roun' heah. No nigger couldn' do it.' ' Well, old man, you have two cords of wood cut to-night, or to-morrow morning you wiU have two hundred lashes — that's all there is about it. So, look sharp !' Of course, he did it, and no negro has ever cut less than two cords a day for me since, though my neigh- bours still get but one cord. It was just so with a great many other things — mauling rails : I always have two hundred rails mauled in a day; just twice what it is the custom, in our country, to expect of a negro, and just twice as many as my negroes had been made to do before I managed them myself. This only makes it more probable that the amount of labour ordinarily and generally performed by slaves in Yirginia is * " Old Man " is a common title of address to any middle-aged negro in Vir- ginia whose name is not known. " Boy " and " Old Man " may be applied to the same person. Of course, in this case, the slave is not to be supposed to be beyond his prime of strength. VIKGIXIA. » 137 very small, compared with that done by the labom*ers of the Free States. Of course, it does ■ not follow that all articles produced by such labour cost four times as much as in New York. There 'are other elements of cost besides labom*, as land and fuel. I could not have a bushel of hme or^ealt or coal dug for me on my farm at Staten Island at any price. There are farms in Virginia where either could be obtained by an hour's labour. Yet now, as I think of all the homes of which I have had a glimpse, it does not seem to me that men who are reputed to be worth S 400,000 have equal advantages of wealth here with those whose property is valued at a quarter that, in the Eastern Free States ; men with ^$11:0,000 hve not as well here, ill things considered, as men worth ^gfl 0,000 at the North ; and the farmer who owns half a dozen negroes, and who I mppose must be called worth g4000, does not approach in lis possession of civilized comfort, the well-to-do working 'nan with us, who rents a small house, and whose property ionsists in its furniture, his tools, skiU, and strength, and who las a few hundred dollars laid up in the Savings-Bank, igainst a rainy day. I do not need to ask a farmer, then, any onger why he Hfts his stable door into its place, and fastens t by leaning a log against it, as he evidently has been doing or years. He cannot afford to buy or hire a blacksmith for lis httle farm, and what with going and coming, and paying Q com which must be carried a number of miles over scarcely tassable roads, our thriftiest farmers would wait for better imes, perhaps, before they would take half the trouble or ive a third as much corn as the blacksmith will want for the )b, to save a minute's time whenever they needed to enter ad leave their stable. And so with everything. Any sub- antial work costs so much, not alone in money or corn 138 COTTON AND SLAVERY. directly, but in the time and trouble in effecting the ex- change, that the people make shift and do without it. And this is evidently the case not only with the people as in- dividuals and families, but in their community. It is more obvious, if possible, in the condition of the houses of worship, the schools, the roads, the pubhc conveyances ; finally, it accounts for what at first sight appears the marvellous neglect or waste of the natural resources of the country, and it no longer surprises me that a farmer points out a coal bed, which has never been worked, in the bank of a stream which has never been dammed, in the midst of a forest of fine timber trees, with clay and lime and sand convenient, and who yet lives in a miserable smoky cabin of logs on a diet almost exclusively formed of pounded maize and bacon. Kor, when I ask, if a little painstaking here and there would not save much waste of fertility, that he should reply, that inasmuch as land enough, equally good, can be bought for six dollars an acre, the whole fertile matter can be better lost than a week's labour be spent to save all that will not go into this year's crop. To this general rule of make shift, there is but rare excep- tion to the general rule of the difficulty or expense of accom- plishing any ordinaiy aim of civilized, in distinction from savage society. I am inclined to think that there is none in Vir- ginia. There are, however, individuals and localities and com- munities and enterprises, upon which the forces of wealth- including both capital and talent, or energy — seem to haT( concentrated, just as we sometimes observe to be the case at th( North. It is true also, as Virginians are fond of asserting, tha" absolute destitution of the means of preserving life is more ran than at the North, but then life is barely preserved with Httl( labour by a naked savage in the wilderness ; and it must b( said that a great number, I almost think a majority, of th viKars'iA. 139 Eastern Yirginians live but one step remoyed from wliat we should deem great destitution at tlie North. I am sure, upon consideration, that this phrase would convey no unjust idea of the life of the majority of the YirginiaHs, whom I have seen, :to the people of a New England manufactming to\m. \ I have said that there are points where the forces of wealth .seem to have concentrated. As a rule the farm-labom: of a slave accomplishes not half as much in a day, as at the North ; that of a white man, probably, not a thfrd ; that of most mechanics, because of their carelessness and unfaithfulness, much less than of most at the North, although they are paid more than there. But it is true, there are apparent excep- :ions, and I have been at times a good deal puzzled by them, jrenerally a patient study discovers a concealed force. Most commonly, I think, the explanation is given in the converse :)f the maxim that " high wages are the cheapest." The vorkman who commands much more than the ruling rate of vages is hard to be got, and proverbially accomplishes much nore for his employer than the excess of his wages indicates. Che man who cannot command the cm-rent rates is the first be di'opped off on a reduction, the last to be taken on at lU increase of force. As prime field-hand slaves furnish the ; jtandard of labour in Virginia, and the vast majority of • labourers are hr below that standard in quality, their labour - s paid much less, and it is of less value relative to its cost, •ilost of the labouring class of Virginia are of a quahty which ur &rmers would call "dear at any price." If, then, by nusually skilful and energetic management, under favom-able ircmnstances, the labour of slaves, in certain instances, seems » accomplish as much for its com^se as that of free labourers t the North, it does not foUow that results of labour of all inds in Virginia do not cost ordinarily, and on average, ^ice or thrice as much as in the adjoining Free States. 1 k I 140 COTTON AND SLAVERY. Whenever I have found unusual efficiency apparent in any enterprise in Virginia — as sometimes in raikoad construction, milling, and mining — I have thus far invariably found the ne- groes employed to be picked men, and, when my inquiries have been frankly answered, that they were working undei some unusual stimulus. For instance, a tobacco manufacturei pays the owner of a valuable negro ^ 140 a year for his ser- vices, undertaking also to feed and clothe him and otherwise care for his permanent value. He then offers to pay the negrc a certain rate per pound for all the tobacco he works up be- yond a certain quantity. One of the largest manufacturers informed me that he paid seldom less than K 60 a year, and sometimes over ^300, to each slave he used, in additior to the rent paid their masters, which was from glOO tc ;gl50 a year. I did not learn the averages, but suppose that, while the nominal wages for the labour of these slave.^ was but little more than the ruling market-rate of ^ 120 ^ year, their labour really cost the manufacturer at least double that. Hardly any of the white labour employed in enter- prises which are pursued with energy and efficiency is native nor does it ever, so far as I have seen, seem to be establishet and at home. VniGINIA. 141 CHAPTEE V. VIHGrNIA AND ITS ECONOMY — CONTINUED. Norfolk. — In order to be in time for the train of cars in which I was to leave Petersburg for Norfolk, I was called up it an unusual hour in the morning and provided wdth an ipology for breakfast, on the ground that there had not been time to prepare anything better (though I was charged full ime on the bill), advised by the landlord to hurry when I ?eated myself at the table, and two minutes afterwards nformed that, if I remained longer, I should be too late. Thanks to these kind precautions, I reached the station "jwenty minutes before the train left, and was afterwards ,:arried, with about fifty other people, at the rate of ten miles 'in hour, to City-point, where all were discharged under a iirty shed, from which a wharf projected into James Eiver. The train was advertised to connect here with a steamboat 3r Norfolk. Finding no steamboat at the w^harf, I feared, at irst, that the delay in leaving Petersburg and the slow speed ipon the road had detained us so long that the boat had eparted without us. But observing no disappointment or oncern expressed by the other passengers, I concluded the oat was to call for us, and had yet to arrive. An hour assed, during which I tried to keep warm by walking up and own the wharf ; rain then commenced falling, and I '3turned to the crowded shed and asked a young man, who as engaged in cutting the letters G. W. B., with a dirk- 142 COTTON AND SLAVERY. knife, upon the head of a tobacco-cask, what was supposed to have detained the steamboat. " Detained her ? there aint no detention to her, as I know on ; ' taint hardly time for her to be along yet." Another half-hour, in fact, passed, before the steamboat arrived, nor was any impatience manifested by the passengers. All seemed to take this hurrying and waiting process as the regular thing. The women sat sullenly upon trunks and packing-cases, and watched their baggage and restrained their children ; the men chewed tobacco and read newspapers ; lounged first on one side and then on the other ; some smoked, some walked away to a distant tavern ; some reclined on the heaps of freight and went to sleep, and a few conversed quietly and intermittently with one another. The shores of the James Kiver are low and level — the scenery uninteresting ; but frequent planters' mansions, often of considerable size and of some elegance, s!;and upon the bank, and sometimes, these have very pretty and well-kept grounds about them, and the plantations sm^rounding them are cultivated with neatness and skill. Many men distinguished in law and pohtics here have their homes. I was pleased to see the appearance of enthusiasm with wMch some passengers, who were landed from om- boat at one of these places, were received by two or three well-dressed negro servants, who had come from the house to the wharf to meet them. Black and white met with kisses ; and the effort of a long-haired sophomore to maintain his dignity, was quite ineffectual to kill the kindness of a fat mulatto woman, who joyfully and pathetically shouted, as she caught him off the gang-plank, " Oh Massa George, is you come back !" Field negroes, standing by, looked on with their usual besotted expression, and neither offered nor received greetings. Jan. 10th. — Norfolk is a dirty, low, ill-arranged town, nearly YIRGIXIA. 143 divided by a morass. It has a single creditable public build- ing, a number of fine private residences, and the polite society- is reputed to be agreeable, refined, and cultivated, receiving a character fi'om the families of the resident naval officers. It has all the immoral and disagTeeable characteristics of a large seaport, with very few of the advantages that we should ex* pect to find as relief to thom. No lyceum or public hbraries, no public gardens, no galleries of art, and though there are two " Bethels," no " home " for its seamen ; no pubhc resorts of healthful amusement ; no place better than a filthy, tobacco- impregnated bar-room or a licentious dance-cellar, so far as I have been able to learn, for the stranger of high or low degree to pass the hours unoccupied by business. Lieut. Maury has lately very well shown what advantages were originally possessed for profitable commerce at this point, in a report, the intention of which is to advocate the lestablishment of a hne of steamers hence to Para, the port of the mouth of the Amazon. He says — "Norfolk is in a position to have commanded the business of the Atlantic sea-board : it is luidway the coast. It has a back country of ■?reat facility and resources ; and, as to approaches to the ocean, there is Qo harbour from the St. John's to the Rio Grande that has the same facilities of ingress and egress at all times and in all weathers. * * The 3ack country of Norfolk is all that which is drained by the Chesapeake 'Bay — embracing a line drawn along the ridge between the Delaware and :lie Chesapeake, thence northerh^ including all of Pennsylvania that is in ■;he valley of the Susquehanna, all of Maryland this side of the mountains, .:he valleys of the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James Rivers, with 'the Valley of the Roanoke, and a great part of the State of North Caro- :Lina, whose only outlet to the sea is by the way of Norfolk." In a letter to the National Intelligencer, Oct. 31, 1854, ifter describing similar advantages which the town possesses, :o those enumerated above, Lieut. Maury, who is a Virginian, igain says — "Its climate is delightful? It is of exactly that happy temperature vhere tlie frosts of the North bite not, and the pestilence of the South Talks not. It3 harbour is commodious and safe as safe can be. It is 144 COTTON AND SLAVEBY. never blocked up by ice. It has the double advantage of an inner and an outer harbour. The mner harbour is as smootli as any mill-pond. In it vessels lie with perfect security, where every imaginable facility is offered for loading and unloading," * * * «« The back country, which without portage is naturally tributary to Norfolk, not only surpasses that which is tributary to New York in mildness of climate, in fertility of soil, and variety of production, but in geographical extent by many square miles. The proportion being as three to one in favour of the Virginia port." * * * " Tlie natural advantages, then, in relation to the sea or the back countr}% are superior, heijond comparison, to those of New York." There is little, if any exaggeration in this estimate ; yet, if a deadly, enervating pestilence had always raged here, tliis Norfolk could not he a more miserable, sorry httle seaport town than it is. It was not possible to prevent the existence of some agency here for the transhipment of goods, and for supplying the needs of vessels, compelled by exterior cu-cum- stances to take refuge in the harbour. Beyond this bare supply of a necessitous demand, and what results from the adjoining naval rendezvous of the nation, ther*? is nothing. Jan. ISth. — The "Great Dismal Swamp," together with the smaller " Dismals " (for so the term is used here), of the same character, along the North Carolina coast, have hitherto been of considerable commercial importance as furnishing a large amount of lumber, and especially of shingles for our Northern use, as well as for exportation. The district from which this commerce proceeds is all a vast quagmire, the soil being enthely composed of decayed vegetable fibre, satm-ated and surcharged with water; yielding or quaking on the surface to the tread of a man, and a large part of it, during most of the year, half inundated ^^th standing pools. It is divided by creeks and water-veins, and in the centre is a pond six miles long and three broad, the shores of which, strange to say, are at a higher elevation above the sea, than any other part of the swamp, and yet are of the same miry consistency. The Great Dismal is about thirty miles long and ten miles wide, on an average ; its area about 200,OOC VIRGINIA. 145 acres. And the little Dismal, Aligator, Catfish, Green, and other smaller swamps, on the shores of Albemarle and Pam- Hco, contain over 2,000,000 acres. The swamp belongs to a great many proprietors. Most of them owa only a few acres, but some possess large tracts and use a heavy capital in the business. One, whose ac- quaintance I made, employed more than a hundred hands in getting out shingles alone. The value of the swamp land varies with the wood upon it, and the facility with which it san be got off, from 12^ cents to i5lO an acre. It is made passable in any desired direction in which trees grow, by laying logs, cut in lengths of eight or ten feet, parallel and .igainst each other on the surface of the soil, or " sponge," as t is called. Mules and oxen are used to some extent upon hese roads, but transportation is mainly by hand to the jreeks, or to ditches communicating with them or the canal. Except by those log-roads, the swamp is scarcely passable lU many parts, owing not only to the softness of the sponge, )ut to the obstruction caused by innumerable shrubs, vines, reepers, and briars, which often take entire possession of the urface, forming a dense brake or jungle. This, however, is ometimes removed by fires, which of late years have been requent and very destmctive to the standing timber. The lost common shrubs are various smooth-leafed evergreens, nd their dense, bright, glossy foliage was exceedingly beau- id in the wintry season of my visit. There is a good deal L game in the swamp — bears and wild cats are sometimes lot, raccoons and opossums are plentiful, and deer are found ;i the drier parts and on the outskirts. The fishing, in the iterior waters, is also said to be excellent. Nearly all the valuable trees have now been cut off fi'om the vamp. The whole ground has been frequently gone over, •e best timber selected and removed at each time, leaving VOL. L L 146 COTTON AND SLAVERY. the remainder standing thinly, so that the wind has more effect upon it ; and much of it, from the yielding of the soft soil, is uprooted or broken off. The fires have also greatly injured it. The principal stock, now worked into shingles, is obtained from beneath the surface — old trunks that have been preserved by the wetness of the soil, and that are found by "sound- ing " with poles, and raised with hooks or pikes by the negroes. The quarry is giving out, however ; and except that lumber, and especially shingles, have been in great demand at high prices of late, the business would be almost at an end. As it is, the principal men engaged in it are turning their attention to other and more distant supplies. A very large purchase had been made by one company in the Florida everglades, and a schooner, with a gang of hands trained in the " Dismals," was about to sail from Deep Creek, for this new field of operations. The labour in the swamp is almost entirely done by slaves ; and the way in which they are managed is interesting and instructive. They are mostly hired by their employers at a, rent, perhaps of one hundred dollars a year for each, paid to their owners. They spend one or two months of the winter — ^when it is too wet to work in the swamp — at the residence of their master. At this period little or no work is required of them ; their time is their own, and if they can get any employment, they will generally keep for themselves what they are paid for it. When it is sufficiently dry — usually early in February — they go into the swamp in gangs, each gang under a white overseer. Before leaving, they are a! examined and registered at the Court House ; and "passes,' good for a year, are given them, in which their features anc the marks upon their persons are minutely described. Eacl man is fm-nished with a quantity of provisions and clothing of which, as well as of all that he afterwards draws fi'om th stock in the hands of the overseer, an exact account is kept. VIRGINIA. 147 Arrived at their destination, a rude camp is made ; huts of logs, poles, shingles, and boughs being built, usually, upon some places where shingles have been worked before, and in which the shavings have accumulated in small hillocks upon the soft surface of the ground. The slave lumberman then lives measurably as a free man ; hunts, fishes, eats, diinks, smokes and sleeps, plays and works, each when and as much as he pleases. It is only required of him that he shall have made, after half a year has passed, such a quantity of shingles as shall be worth to his master so much money as is paid to his owner for his services, and shall refund the value of the clothing and pro- visions he has required. No " driving " at his work is attempted or needed. No force is used to overcome the indolence peculiar to the negro. The overseer merely takes a daily account of the number of shingles each man adds to the general stock, and employs ' another set of hands, with mules, to draw them to a point from which they can be shipped, and where they are, from time to time, called for by a ' chooner. At the end of five months the gang returns to dry land, and a statement of account from the overseer's book is drawn up, something like the following : — Sam Bo to John Doe, Dr. Feb. 1. To clothing (outfit) 55 00 Mar. 10. To clotliing, as per overseer's account 2 25 Feb. 1. To bacon and meal (outfit) .... 19 00 July 1. To stores drawn in swamp, as per over- seer's account 4 75 July 1. To half-yearly hire, paid his owner . 50 00 jgSl 00 Per Contra, Cr. July 1. By 10,000 shingles, as per overseer's account, 10c 100 00 Balance due Sambo §19 00 L 2 148 COTTON AND SLAVERY. which is immediately paid him, and of which, together with the proceeds of sale of peltry which he has got while in the swamp, he is always allowed to make use as his own. No liquor is sold or served to the negroes in the swamp, and, as their first want when they come out of it is an excitement, most of their money goes to the grog-shops. After a short vacation, the whole gang is taken in the schooner to spend another five months in the swamp as hefore. If they are good hands and work steadily, they will com- monly be hired again, and so continuing, will spend most of their lives at it. They almost invariably have excellent health, as have also the white men engaged in the business. They all consider the water of the " Dismals " to have a medicinal virtue, and quite probably it is a mild tonic. It is greenish in colour, and I thought I detected a slightly resinous taste upon first drinking it. Upon entering the swamp also, an agreeable resinous odour, resembling that of a hemlock forest, was perceptible. The negroes working in the swamp were more sprightly and straightforward in their manner and conversation than any field-hand plantation negroes that I saw at the South ; two or three of their employers with whom I conversed spoke well of them, as compared with other slaves, and made no complaints of " rascality " or laziness. One of those gentlemen told me of a remarkable case of providence and good sense in a negro that he had employed in t^e swamp for many years. He was so trustworthy, that he had once let him go to New York as cook of a lumber schooner, when he could, if he had chosen to remain there, have easily escaped from slavery. Knowing that he must have accumulated considerable money, his employer suggested to him that he might buy his freedom, and he immediately determined to do so. But when, on applying to his owner, he was asked B 500 for him- VIRGINIA. — NORTH CAROLINA. 149 self, a price which, considering he was an elderly man, he thought too much, he declined the bargain ; shortly after- wards, however, he came to his employer again, and said that although he thought his owner was mean to set so high a price upon him, he had been thinking that if he w^as to be an old man he would rather be his own master, and if he did not Uve long, his money would not be of any use to him at any rate, and so he had concluded he would make the purchase. He did so, and upon collecting the various sums that he had loaned to white people in the vicinity, he was found to have several hundred dollars more than was necessary. With the surplus, he paid for his passage to Liberia, and bought a handsome outfit. When he was about to leave, my in- formant had made him a present, and, in thanking him for it, the free man had said that the first thing he should do, on reaching Liberia, would be to learn to write, and, as soon as he could, he would write to him how he hked the country : he had been gone yet scarce a year, and had not been heard fr'om. Deep River,, Jan. ISth. — The shad and herring fisheries upon the sounds and inlets of the North Carolina coast are an important branch of industry, and a source of considerable wealth. The men employed in them are mainly negroes, slave and free ; and the manner in which they are conducted is interesting, and in some respects novel. The largest sweep seines in the world are used. The gentleman to whom I am indebted for the most of my infor- mation, was the proprietor of a seine over two miles in length. It was manned by a force of forty negroes, most of whom were hired at a dollar a day, for the fishing season, which usually commences between the tenth and fifteenth of March, 150 COTTON AND SLAVERY. and lasts fifty days. In favourable years tlie profits are very great. In extremely unfavourable years many of the pro- prietors are made bankrupt. Cleaning, curing, and packing houses are erected on the shore, as near as they conveniently may be to a point on the beach, suitable for drawing the seine. Six or eight wind- lasses, worked by horses, are fixed along the shore, on each side of this point. There are two large seine-boats, in each of which there is one captain, two seine-tenders, and eight or ten oarsmen. In making a cast of the net, one-half of it is arranged on the stern of each of the boats, which, having previously been placed in a suitable position — perhaps a mile off shore, in front of the buildings — are rowed from each other, the captams steering, and the seine-tenders throwing off, until the seine is all cast between them. This is usually done in such a way that it describes the arc of a circle, the chord of which is diagonal with the shore. The hawsers attached to the ends of the seine are brought first to the outer windlasses, and are wound in by the horses. As the operation of gathering in the seine occupies several hours, the boat hands, as soon as they have brought the hawsers to the shore, draw their boats up, and go to sleep. As the wings approach the shore, the hawsers are from time to time carried to the other windlasses, to contract the sweep of the seine. After the gaff of the net reaches the shore, lines attached toward the bunt are carried to the wind- lasses, and the boats' crews are awakened, and arrange the wing of the seine, as fast as it comes in, upon the boat again. Of course, as the cast was made diagonally with the shore, one wing is beached before the other. By the time the fish in the bunt have been secured, both boats are ready for another cast, and the boatmen proceed to make it, while the shore gang is engaged in sortmg and gutting the " take." VIEGINIA. — NORTH CAROLINA. 1^1 My informant, who had ^50,000 invested in his fishing estabhshment, among other items of expenditure, mentioned that he had used seventy kegs of gunpowder the previous , year, and amused himself for a few moments with letting me try to conjectm-e in what way villanous saltpetre could be put to use in taking fish. I ) There is evidence of a subsidence of this coast, in many places, at a comparatively recent period ; many stumps of trees, evidently standing where they grew, being found some way below the present surface, in the swamps and salt marshes. Where the formation of the shore and the surface, or the strength of the currents of water, which have flowed over the sunken land, has been such as to prevent a later deposit, the stumps of great cypress trees, not in the least decayed, protrude from the bottom of the sounds. These would obstruct the passage of a net, and must be removed from a fishing-ground. The operation of removing them is carried on during the summer, after the clo»j of the fishing season. The position of a stump having been ascertained by divers, two large seine- boats are moored over it, alongside each other, and a log is laid across them, to which is attached perpendicularly, between the boats, a spar, fifteen feet long. The end of a chain is (booked to the log, between the boats, the other end of which ,LS fastened by divers to the stump which it is wished to raise. A double-purchase tackle leads from the end of the spar to a ling-bolt in the bows of one of the boats, with the fall leading aft, to be bowsed upon by the crews. The mechanical advan- tages of the windlass, the lever, and the pulley being thus combined, the chain is wound on to the log, until either the ,itump yields, and is brought to the surface, or the boats' gunwales are brought to the water's edge. When the latter is the case, and the stump still remains 152 ' COTTON AND SLAVERY. firm, a new power must be applied. A spile, pointed with I iron, six inches in diameter, and twenty feet long, is set upon jl the stump by a diver, who goes down with it, and gives m it that direction which, in his judgment, is best, and driven I into it by mauls and sledges, a scaffold being erected between 11 the boats for men to stand on while driving it. In very I large stumps, the spile is often driven till its top reaches the fl water ; so that when it is drawn out, a cavity is left in the H stump, ten feet in depth. A tube is now used, which is ^ made by welding together three musket-barrels, with a breech at one end, in which is the tube of a percussion breech, with the ordinary position of the nipple reversed, so that when it is screwed on with a detonating cap, the latter will protrude within the barrel. This breech is then inserted within a cylindrical tin box, six inches in diameter, and varying in length, according to the supposed strength of the stump ; and soap or tallow is smeared about the place of insertion to make it water tight. The box contains several pounds of gunpowder. The long iron tube is elevated, and the diver goes down again, and guides it into the hole in the stump, with the ' canister in his arms. It has reached the bottom — the diver has come up, and is drawn into one of the boats — an iron rod is inserted in the mouth of the tube — all hands crouch low^ and hold hard — the rod is let go — crack! — whoo — oosch! : The sea sv^^ells, boils, and breaks upward. If the boats do not rise with it, they must sink ; if they rise, and the chain does not break, the stump must rise with them. At the same . moment the heart of C3rpress is riven ; its furthest rootlets quiver ; the very earth trembles, and loses courage to hold it ; " up comes the stump, or down go the niggers !" The success of the operation evidently depends mainly on ; the discretion and skill of the diver. My informant, who VIEGmA. — NORTH CAROLINA. 153 I thought that he removed last summer over a thousand stumps, using for the purpose seventy kegs of gunpowder, . employed several divers, all of them negroes. Some of them could remain under water, and work there to better advantage than others ; but all were admirably skilful, and this, much in proportion to the practice and experience they had had. They wear, when diving, thi'ee or four pairs of flannel di'awers and shirts. Nothing is required of them when they are not wanted to go to the bottom, and, while the other hands are at work, they may lounge, or go to sleep in the boat, which ' they do, in then* wet garments. Whenever a diver displays unusual hardihood, skill, or perseverance, he is rewarded with whisky ; or, as they are commonly allowed, while diving, as much whisky as they want, with money. Each of them would generally get every day from a quarter to half a dollar in this way, above the wages paid for them, according to the skill and industry with which they had worked. On this account, said my informant, " the harder the work you give them to do, the better they like it." His divers very frequently had intermittent fevers, but would very rarely let this keep them out of their boats. Even in the midst of a severe " shake," they would generally insist that they were " well enough to dive." What ! slaves eager to work, and working cheerfully, earn- estly, and skilfully ? Even so. Being for the time managed as freemen, their ambition stimulated by wages, suddenly jthey, too, reveal sterling manhood, and honour then Creator. < Norfolk, Jan. Idtli. — The market gardens at Xorfolk — vhich have been profitably supplying New York markets with )oor early vegetables, and half-hardy luxuries for several years -