Twelve Years a Slave
ELDRET, THE PLANTER--ELDRET'S SAM--TRIP TO THE "BIG CANE BRAKE"--THE
TRADITION OF "SUTTON'S FIELD"--FOREST TREES--GNATS AND MOSQUITOS--THE
ARRIVAL OF BLACK WOMEN IN THE BIG CANE--LUMBER WOMEN--SUDDEN
APPEARANCE OF TIBEATS--HIS PROVOKING TREATMENT--VISIT TO BAYOU
BOEUF--THE SLAVE PASS--SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY--THE LAST OF ELIZA--SALE
TO EDWIN EPPS.
After a long sleep, sometime in the afternoon I awoke, refreshed, but
very sore and stiff. Sally came in and talked with me, while John
cooked me some dinner. Sally was in great trouble, as well as myself,
one of her children being ill, and she feared it could not survive.
Dinner over, after walking about the quarters for a while, visiting
Sally's cabin and looking at the sick child, I strolled into the
madam's garden. Though it was a season of the year when the voices
of the birds are silent, and the trees are stripped of their summer
glories in more frigid climes, yet the whole variety of roses were
then blooming there, and the long, luxuriant vines creeping over
the frames. The crimson and golden fruit hung half hidden amidst the
younger and older blossoms of the peach, the orange, the plum, and
the pomegranate; for, in that region of almost perpetual warmth, the
leaves are falling and the buds bursting into bloom the whole year
long.
I indulged the most grateful feelings towards Master and Mistress
Ford, and wishing in some manner to repay their kindness, commenced
trimming the vines, and afterwards weeding out the grass from among
the orange and pomegranate trees. The latter grows eight or ten feet
high, and its fruit, though larger, is similar in appearance to the
jelly-flower. It has the luscious flavor of the strawberry. Oranges,
peaches, plums, and most other fruits are indigenous to the rich,
warm soil of Avoyelles; but the apple, the most common of them all in
colder latitudes, is rarely to be seen.
Mistress Ford came out presently, saying it was praise-worthy in me,
but I was not in a condition to labor, and might rest myself at the
quarters until master should go down to Bayou Boeuf, which would not
be that day, and it might not be the next. I said to her--to be sure,
I felt bad, and was stiff, and that my foot pained me, the stubs and
thorns having so torn it, but thought such exercise would not hurt
me, and that it was a great pleasure to work for so good a mistress.
Thereupon she returned to the great house, and for three days I was
diligent in the garden, cleaning the walks, weeding the flower beds,
and pulling up the rank grass beneath the jessamine vines, which the
gentle and generous hand of my protectress had taught to clamber along
the walls.
The fourth morning, having become recruited and refreshed, Master Ford
ordered me to make ready to accompany him to the bayou. There was but
one saddle horse at the opening, all the others with the mules having
been sent down to the plantation. I said I could walk, and bidding
Sally and John goodbye, left the opening, trotting along by the
horse's side.
That little paradise in the Great Pine Woods was the oasis in the
desert, towards which my heart turned lovingly, during many years
of bondage. I went forth from it now with regret and sorrow, not so
overwhelming, however, as if it had then been given me to know that I
should never return to it again.
Master Ford urged me to take his place occasionally on the horse, to
rest me; but I said no, I was not tired, and it was better for me to
walk than him. He said many kind and cheering things to me on the
way, riding slowly, in order that I might keep pace with him. The
goodness of God was manifest, he declared, in my miraculous escape
from the swamp. As Daniel came forth unharmed from the den of lions,
and as Jonah had been preserved in the whale's belly, even so had
I been delivered from evil by the Almighty. He interrogated me in
regard to the various fears and emotions I had experienced during the
day and night, and if I had felt, at any time, a desire to pray. I
felt forsaken of the whole world, I answered him, and was praying
mentally all the while. At such times, said he, the heart of man turns
instinctively towards his Maker. In prosperity, and when there is
nothing to injure or make him afraid, he remembers Him not, and is
ready to defy Him; but place him in the midst of dangers, cut him off
from human aid, let the grave open before him--then it is, in the time
of his tribulation, that the scoffer and unbelieving man turns to God
for help, feeling there is no other hope, or refuge, or safety, save
in his protecting arm.
So did that benignant man speak to me of this life and of the life
hereafter; of the goodness and power of God, and of the vanity of
earthly things, as we journeyed along the solitary road towards Bayou
Boeuf.
When within some five miles of the plantation, we discovered a
horseman at a distance, galloping towards us. As he came near I saw
that it was Tibeats! He looked at me a moment, but did not address
me, and turning about, rode along side by side with Ford. I trotted
silently at their horses' heels, listening to their conversation.
Ford informed him of my arrival in the Pine Woods three days before,
of the sad plight I was in, and of the difficulties and dangers I had
encountered.
"Well," exclaimed Tibeats, omitting his usual oaths in the presence
of Ford, "I never saw such running before. I'll bet him against a
hundred dollars, he'll beat any nigger in Louisiana. I offered John
David Cheney twenty-five dollars to catch him, dead or alive, but he
outran his dogs in a fair race. Them Cheney dogs ain't much, after
all. Dunwoodie's hounds would have had him down before he touched the
palmettoes. Somehow the dogs got off the track, and we had to give
up the hunt. We rode the horses as far as we could, and then kept on
foot till the water was three feet deep. The boys said he was drowned,
sure. I allow I wanted a shot at him mightily. Ever since, I have
been riding up and down the bayou, but had'nt much hope of catching
him--thought he was dead, _sartin_. Oh, he's a cuss to run--that
nigger is!"
In this way Tibeats ran on, describing his search in the swamp, the
wonderful speed with which I had fled before the hounds, and when
he had finished, Master Ford responded by saying, I had always been
a willing and faithful boy with him; that he was sorry we had such
trouble; that, according to Platt's story, he had been inhumanly
treated, and that he, Tibeats, was himself in fault. Using hatchets
and broad-axes upon slaves was shameful, and should not be allowed,
he remarked. "This is no way of dealing with them, when first brought
into the country. It will have a pernicious influence, and set them
all running away. The swamps will be full of them. A little kindness
would be far more effectual in restraining them, and rendering them
obedient, than the use of such deadly weapons. Every planter on the
bayou should frown upon such inhumanity. It is for the interest of
all to do so. It is evident enough, Mr. Tibeats, that you and Platt
cannot live together. You dislike him, and would not hesitate to
kill him, and knowing it, he will run from you again through fear
of his life. Now, Tibeats, you must sell him, or hire him out, at
least. Unless you do so, I shall take measures to get him out of your
possession."
In this spirit Ford addressed him the remainder of the distance. I
opened not my mouth. On reaching the plantation they entered the
great house, while I repaired to Eliza's cabin. The slaves were
astonished to find me there, on returning from the field, supposing
I was drowned. That night, again, they gathered about the cabin to
listen to the story of my adventure. They took it for granted I would
be whipped, and that it would be severe, the well-known penalty of
running away being five hundred lashes.
"Poor fellow," said Eliza, taking me by the hand, "it would have been
better for you if you had drowned. You have a cruel master, and he
will kill you yet, I am afraid."
Lawson suggested that it might be, overseer Chapin would be appointed
to inflict the punishment, in which case it would not be severe,
whereupon Mary, Rachel, Bristol, and others hoped it would be Master
Ford, and then it would be no whipping at all. They all pitied me
and tried to console me, and were sad in view of the castigation
that awaited me, except Kentucky John. There were no bounds to his
laughter; he filled the cabin with cachinnations, holding his sides
to prevent an explosion, and the cause of his noisy mirth was the idea
of my outstripping the hounds. Somehow, he looked at the subject in a
comical light. "I _know'd_ dey would'nt cotch him, when he run cross
de plantation. O, de lor', did'nt Platt pick his feet right up, tho',
hey? When dem dogs got whar he was, he was'nt _dar_--haw, haw, haw! O,
de lor' a' mity!"--and then Kentucky John relapsed into another of his
boisterous fits.
Early the next morning, Tibeats left the plantation. In the course
of the forenoon, while sauntering about the gin-house, a tall,
good-looking man came to me, and inquired if I was Tibeats' boy, that
youthful appellation being applied indiscriminately to slaves even
though they may have passed the number of three score years and ten. I
took off my hat, and answered that I was.
"How would you like to work for me?" he inquired.
"Oh, I would like to, very much," said I, inspired with a sudden hope
of getting away from Tibeats.
"You worked under Myers at Peter Tanner's, didn't you?"
I replied I had, adding some complimentary remarks that Myers had made
concerning me.
"Well, boy," said he, "I have hired you of your master to work for me
in the "Big Cane Brake," thirty-eight miles from here, down on Red
River."
This man was Mr. Eldret, who lived below Ford's, on the same side of
the bayou. I accompanied him to his plantation, and in the morning
started with his slave Sam, and a wagon-load of provisions, drawn by
four mules, for the Big Cane, Eldret and Myers having preceded us on
horseback. This Sam was a native of Charleston, where he had a mother,
brother and sisters. He "allowed"--a common word among both black and
white--that Tibeats was a mean man, and hoped, as I most earnestly did
also, that his master would buy me.
We proceeded down the south shore of the bayou, crossing it at Carey's
plantation; from thence to Huff Power, passing which, we came upon the
Bayou Rouge road, which runs towards Red River. After passing through
Bayou Rouge Swamp, and just at sunset, turning from the highway, we
struck off into the "Big Cane Brake." We followed an unbeaten track,
scarcely wide enough to admit the wagon. The cane, such as are used
for fishing-rods, were as thick as they could stand. A person could
not be seen through them the distance of a rod. The paths of wild
beasts run through them in various directions--the bear and the
American tiger abounding in these brakes, and wherever there is a
basin of stagnant water, it is full of alligators.
We kept on our lonely course through the "Big Cane" several miles,
when we entered a clearing, known as "Sutton's Field." Many years
before, a man by the name of Sutton had penetrated the wilderness
of cane to this solitary place. Tradition has it, that he fled
thither, a fugitive, not from service, but from justice. Here he lived
alone--recluse and hermit of the swamp--with his own hands planting
the seed and gathering in the harvest. One day a band of Indians
stole upon his solitude, and after a bloody battle, overpowered and
massacred him. For miles the country round, in the slaves' quarters,
and on the piazzas of "great houses," where white children listen to
superstitious tales, the story goes, that that spot, in the heart