My Bondage and My Freedom
generally—was taken by a Mr. Gore, of whom more will be said hereafter.
It is enough, for the present, to say, that he was no improvement on
Mr. Sevier, except that he was less noisy and less profane.
I have already referred to the business-like aspect of Col. Lloyd’s
plantation. This business-like appearance was much increased on the two
days at the end of each month, when the slaves from the different farms
came to get their monthly allowance of meal and meat. These were gala
days for the slaves, and there was much rivalry among them as to _who_
should be elected to go up to the great house farm for the allowance,
and, indeed, to attend to any business at this (for them) the capital.
The beauty and grandeur of the place, its numerous slave population,
and the fact that Harry, Peter and Jake the sailors of the sloop—almost
always kept, privately, little trinkets which they bought at Baltimore,
to sell, made it a privilege to come to the great house farm. Being
selected, too, for this office, was deemed a high honor. It was taken
as a proof of confidence and favor; but, probably, the chief motive of
the competitors for the place, was, a desire to break the dull monotony
of the field, and to get beyond the overseer’s eye and lash. Once on
the road with an ox team, and seated on the tongue of his cart, with no
overseer to look after him, the slave was comparatively free; and, if
thoughtful, he had time to think. Slaves are generally expected to sing
as well as to work. A silent slave is not liked by masters or
overseers. _“Make a noise,” “make a noise,”_ and _“bear a hand,”_ are
the words usually addressed to the slaves when there is silence amongst
them. This may account for the almost constant singing heard in the
southern states. There was, generally, more or less singing among the
teamsters, as it was one means of letting the overseer know where they
were, and that they were moving on with the work. But, on allowance
day, those who visited the great house farm were peculiarly excited and
noisy. While on their way, they would make the dense old woods, for
miles around, reverberate with their wild notes. These were not always
merry because they were wild. On the contrary, they were mostly of a
plaintive cast, and told a tale of grief and sorrow. In the most
boisterous outbursts of rapturous sentiment, there was ever a tinge of
deep melancholy. I have never heard any songs like those anywhere since
I left slavery, except when in Ireland. There I heard the same _wailing
notes_, and was much affected by them. It was during the famine of
1845-6. In all the songs of the slaves, there was ever some expression
in praise of the great house farm; something which would flatter the
pride of the owner, and, possibly, draw a favorable glance from him.
I am going away to the great house farm,
O yea! O yea! O yea!
My old master is a good old master,
O yea! O yea! O yea!
This they would sing, with other words of their own improvising—jargon
to others, but full of meaning to themselves. I have sometimes thought,
that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress truly
spiritual-minded men and women with the soul-crushing and death-dealing
character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of its mere
physical cruelties. They speak to the heart and to the soul of the
thoughtful. I cannot better express my sense of them now, than ten
years ago, when, in sketching my life, I thus spoke of this feature of
my plantation experience:
I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meanings of those rude,
and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle, so
that I neither saw or heard as those without might see and hear. They
told a tale which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension;
they were tones, loud, long and deep, breathing the prayer and
complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone
was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance
from chains. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my
spirits, and filled my heart with ineffable sadness. The mere
recurrence, even now, afflicts my spirit, and while I am writing these
lines, my tears are falling. To those songs I trace my first glimmering
conceptions of the dehumanizing character of slavery. I can never get
rid of that conception. Those songs still follow me, to deepen my
hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds.
If any one wishes to be impressed with a sense of the soul-killing
power of slavery, let him go to Col. Lloyd’s plantation, and, on
allowance day, place himself in the deep, pine woods, and there let
him, in silence, thoughtfully analyze the sounds that shall pass
through the chambers of his soul, and if he is not thus impressed, it
will only be because “there is no flesh in his obdurate heart.”
The remark is not unfrequently made, that slaves are the most contended
and happy laborers in the world. They dance and sing, and make all
manner of joyful noises—so they do; but it is a great mistake to
suppose them happy because they sing. The songs of the slave represent
the sorrows, rather than the joys, of his heart; and he is relieved by
them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. Such is the
constitution of the human mind, that, when pressed to extremes, it
often avails itself of the most opposite methods. Extremes meet in mind
as in matter. When the slaves on board of the “Pearl” were overtaken,
arrested, and carried to prison—their hopes for freedom blasted—as they
marched in chains they sang, and found (as Emily Edmunson tells us) a
melancholy relief in singing. The singing of a man cast away on a
desolate island, might be as appropriately considered an evidence of
his contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave. Sorrow and
desolation have their songs, as well as joy and peace. Slaves sing more
to _make_ themselves happy, than to express their happiness.
It is the boast of slaveholders, that their slaves enjoy more of the
physical comforts of life than the peasantry of any country in the
world. My experience contradicts this. The men and the women slaves on
Col. Lloyd’s farm, received, as their monthly allowance of food, eight
pounds of pickled pork, or their equivalent in fish. The pork was often
tainted, and the fish was of the poorest quality—herrings, which would
bring very little if offered for sale in any northern market. With
their pork or fish, they had one bushel of Indian meal—unbolted—of
which quite fifteen per cent was fit only to feed pigs. With this, one
pint of salt was given; and this was the entire monthly allowance of a
full grown slave, working constantly in the open field, from morning
until night, every day in the month except Sunday, and living on a
fraction more than a quarter of a pound of meat per day, and less than
a peck of corn-meal per week. There is no kind of work that a man can
do which requires a better supply of food to prevent physical
exhaustion, than the field-work of a slave. So much for the slave’s
allowance of food; now for his raiment. The yearly allowance of
clothing for the slaves on this plantation, consisted of two tow-linen
shirts—such linen as the coarsest crash towels are made of; one pair of
trowsers of the same material, for summer, and a pair of trowsers and a
jacket of woolen, most slazily put together, for winter; one pair of
yarn stockings, and one pair of shoes of the coarsest description. The
slave’s entire apparel could not have cost more than eight dollars per
year. The allowance of food and clothing for the little children, was
committed to their mothers, or to the older slavewomen having the care
of them. Children who were unable to work in the field, had neither
shoes, stockings, jackets nor trowsers given them. Their clothing
consisted of two coarse tow-linen shirts—already described—per year;
and when these failed them, as they often did, they went naked until
the next allowance day. Flocks of little children from five to ten
years old, might be seen on Col. Lloyd’s plantation, as destitute of
clothing as any little heathen on the west coast of Africa; and this,
not merely during the summer months, but during the frosty weather of
March. The little girls were no better off than the boys; all were
nearly in a state of nudity.
As to beds to sleep on, they were known to none of the field hands;
nothing but a coarse blanket—not so good as those used in the north to
cover horses—was given them, and this only to the men and women. The
children stuck themselves in holes and corners, about the quarters;
often in the corner of the huge chimneys, with their feet in the ashes
to keep them warm. The want of beds, however, was not considered a very
great privation. Time to sleep was of far greater importance, for, when
the day’s work is done, most of the slaves have their washing, mending
and cooking to do; and, having few or none of the ordinary facilities
for doing such things, very many of their sleeping hours are consumed
in necessary preparations for the duties of the coming day.
The sleeping apartments—if they may be called such—have little regard
to comfort or decency. Old and young, male and female, married and
single, drop down upon the common clay floor, each covering up with his
or her blanket,—the only protection they have from cold or exposure.
The night, however, is shortened at both ends. The slaves work often as
long as they can see, and are late in cooking and mending for the
coming day; and, at the first gray streak of morning, they are summoned
to the field by the driver’s horn.
More slaves are whipped for oversleeping than for any other fault.
Neither age nor sex finds any favor. The overseer stands at the quarter
door, armed with stick and cowskin, ready to whip any who may be a few
minutes behind time. When the horn is blown, there is a rush for the
door, and the hindermost one is sure to get a blow from the overseer.
Young mothers who worked in the field, were allowed an hour, about ten
o’clock in the morning, to go home to nurse their children. Sometimes
they were compelled to take their children with them, and to leave them
in the corner of the fences, to prevent loss of time in nursing them.
The overseer generally rides about the field on horseback. A cowskin
and a hickory stick are his constant companions. The cowskin is a kind
of whip seldom seen in the northern states. It is made entirely of
untanned, but dried, ox hide, and is about as hard as a piece of
well-seasoned live oak. It is made of various sizes, but the usual
length is about three feet. The part held in the hand is nearly an inch
in thickness; and, from the extreme end of the butt or handle, the
cowskin tapers its whole length to a point. This makes it quite elastic
and springy. A blow with it, on the hardest back, will gash the flesh,
and make the blood start. Cowskins are painted red, blue and green, and
are the favorite slave whip. I think this whip worse than the
“cat-o’nine-tails.” It condenses the whole strength of the arm to a
single point, and comes with a spring that makes the air whistle. It is
a terrible instrument, and is so handy, that the overseer can always
have it on his person, and ready for use. The temptation to use it is
ever strong; and an overseer can, if disposed, always have cause for
using it. With him, it is literally a word and a blow, and, in most
cases, the blow comes first.
As a general rule, slaves do not come to the quarters for either
breakfast or dinner, but take their “ash cake” with them, and eat it in
the field. This was so on the home plantation; probably, because the
distance from the quarter to the field, was sometimes two, and even
three miles.