AN ENGLISHMAN IN SOUTH CAROLINA
DECEMBER, 1860, AND JULY, 1862
II
'Mornin', sa! De Cunnel send dis with his compliments. Merry Christmas, sa!' Such was the salutation arousing me on the anniversary of the birth of Him who came on earth to preach the Gospel of love and fraternity to all men—or the date which pious tradition has arbitrarily assigned to it. And Pomp appeared by the bedside of the ponderous, old-fashioned four-poster, in which I had slept, bearing a tumbler containing that very favorite Southern 'eye-opener,' a mixture of peach brandy and honey. I sipped, rose, and began dressing. The slave regarded me wistfully, and repeated his Christmas salutation.
I knew what the poor fellow meant, well enough, and responded with a gratuity sufficient to make his black face lustrous with pleasure. All through the South the system of backsheesh is as prevalent as in Turkey, and with more justification. At the hotels its adoption is compulsory, if the traveller would shun eyeservice and the most provoking inattention or neglect. His coffee appears unaccompanied by milk or sugar, his steak without bread, condiments are inaccessible, and his sable attendant does the least possible toward deserving that name, until a semi-weekly quarter or half dollar transforms him from a miracle of stupidity and awkwardness into your enthusiastic and ever-zealous retainer. This, however, by the way.
My present had the usual effect; Pompey became approbative and talkative:
'You come from England, sa?' he asked, looking up from the hearth and temporarily desisting in his vigorous puffing at the fire he had already kindled for me to dress by.
'Yes,' I answered.
'Dat a long ways off, sa?'
'Over three thousand miles of salt water, Pompey.'
'Golly! I 'fraid o' dem! didn't tink dere was so much water in de world!' adding a compliment on the supposed courage involved in crossing the Atlantic. Negroes have almost no relative ideas of distance or number beyond a very limited extent; they will say 'a tousan'd,' fifty or a hundred 'tousand,' with equal inexactitude and fluency. Presently Pompey began again:
'Many colored people in England, sa?'
'Very few. You might live there a year without meeting one.'
'I'se hear dey's all free—dem what is dar? dat so?' he asked, curiously.
'Yes; just as they are at the North; only I think they're a little better treated in England. We don't make any difference between men on account of their skin. You might marry a white woman there, Pompey, if you could get her to have you.'
Pompey honored this remark with as much ready negro laughter as he seemed to think it demanded.
'I'se got a wife already, sa,' he answered. 'But 'pears to me England must be good country to lib in.'
'Why so?'
'All free dar, sa!'
'Why you'd have to work harder than you do here, and have nobody to take care of you. The climate wouldn't suit you, either, there's not enough sunshine. You couldn't have a kinder or a better master than Colonel –, I'm sure.'
'No, sa!' with a good deal of earnestness; 'he fust-rate man, sa, dat a fac; and Mass' Philip and de young ladies, dey berry good to us. But—' and the slave hesitated.
'What is it, Pompey? Speak out!'
'Well, den, some day de Cunnel he die, and den trouble come, suah! De ole plantation be sold, and de hands sold too, or we be divide 'tween Mass' Phil, Miss Jule, and Miss Emmy. Dey get married, ob course. Some go one way, some toder, we wid dem—nebber lib together no more. Dat's what I keep t'inkin ob, sa!'
What answer could be made to this simple statement of one of the dire contingencies inevitable to slave life? perhaps that most dreaded by the limited class of well cared-for house servants, of which Pompey was a good representative. He knew, as well as I, that his poor average of happiness was fortuitous—that it hinged on the life of his master. At his death he might become the chattel of any human brute with a white epidermis and money enough to buy him; might be separated from wife, children, companions and past associations. Suggesting the practical wisdom involved in the biblical axiom that sufficient for the day is the evil thereof, I turned the conversation and presently dismissed him. I experienced some little difficulty in accomplishing the latter, for he was both zealous and familiar in my service: indeed, this is one of the nuisances appertaining to the institution; a pet slave seems hardly to understand the desire for privacy, and is prone to consider himself ill-used if you presume to dispense with his attendance. His ideal of a master is one who needs a great deal of waiting on in trivial, unlaborious ways, who tolerates all shortcomings and slovenliness, and bestows liberal gratuities.
Descending to the breakfast parlor, I received and responded to the appropriate salutations for the day from my host and his family, who had already recognized it, English fashion, by the interchange of mutual presents, those of the Colonel to his daughters being jewelry of a handsome and expensive character. The trinkets were submitted to my inspection and duly admired.
'I must tell you something about these knick-knacks, Mr. –,' said the evidently gratified father. 'You wouldn't suppose, now, that these mercenary girls actually asked me to give them money instead of trinkets?'
His tone and looks involved some latent compliment to the young ladies, and I said as much.
'They wanted to give it to the State, to help arm and equip some of the military companies. I couldn't let 'em suffer for their patriotism, you know; so I had to advance the money and buy the trinkets, too; though I'll do them the justice to say they didn't expect it. Never mind! the Southern Confederacy and free trade will reimburse me. And now let's have breakfast.'
The Southern Confederacy and Free Trade! During secession time in Charleston, there was displayed in front of the closed theatre, a foolish daub on canvas, depicting crowded wharves, cotton bales, arriving and departing vessels, and other indications of maritime and commercial prosperity, surmounted by seven stars, that being the expected number of seceding States, all presented as a representation of the good time coming. It remained there for over a month, when one of those violent storms of wind and rain variegating the humidity of a South-Carolinian winter tore it to pieces, leaving only the skeleton framework on which it had been supported. May not this picture and its end prove symbolical?
'Did you observe that our Charleston ladies dress very plainly, this season?' continued the Colonel, as we sat at breakfast. 'There are no silks and satins this Christmas, no balls, no concerts, no marriages. We are generally economizing for whatever may happen.'
'Why, I thought you didn't expect war?' I answered.
'No more we do; but it's well to be prepared.'
'There's to be no race ball, I understand,' said the lazy gentleman, who had appeared later than the rest of us, and was having a couple of eggs 'opened' for him into a tumbler, by Pompey. 'The girls will miss that. Can you tell me how the betting stood between Albine and Planet?'
I could not, and observed that the Colonel changed the subject with some marks of irritation. I learned afterward that his indolent relative had an incurable passion for betting, and, when carried away by it, was capable of giving unauthorized notes upon his opulent relative, who paid them in honor of the family name, but objected to the practice. He himself affected to discourage betting, though his State pride actually induced him to risk money on the 'little mare' Albine, a South-Carolina horse, who subsequently and very unexpectedly triumphed over her Virginian opponent. But this by the way.
Breakfast over and cigars lighted (the Colonel imported his own from Havana, each one enwrapped in a separate leaf, and especially excellent in quality), we strolled abroad. The negroes were not at work, of course; and, early as it was, we found their quarters all alive with merriment and expectation. Some of the younger men, dressed in their best clothes—generally suits of plain, substantial homespun, white or check shirts, and felt hats—went from house to house, wishing the inmates the compliments of the season, blended with obstreperous, broad-mouthed laughter; in some instances carrying nosegays, received, in common with the givers, with immense delight and coquetry on the part of the females. These wore neatly-made, clean cotton dresses, with gaily-colored handkerchiefs arranged turban fashion upon their heads. Many of the old men and not a few of the old women were smoking clay or corncob pipes; the children laughed, cried, played with each other, rolled upon the ground, and disported themselves as children, white, black, or particolored, do all the world over; the occasional twang of a banjo and a fiddle was heard, and everything looked like enjoyment and anticipation. Of course, the huts of the future brides constituted the centre of attraction: from the chattering of tongues within we inferred that the wedding dresses were exposed for the admiring inspection of the negro population.
The Colonel had just arrived at the peroration of an eloquent eulogium of the scene, when the overseer appeared at the end of the avenue of orange trees, and presently drew rein beside us, his countenance exhibiting marks of dissatisfaction.
'I've had trouble with them boys over to my place, Colonel,' he said, briefly, and looking loweringly around, as though he would be disposed to resent any listening to his report on the part of the negroes.
'Why, what's the matter with them?' asked his employer, hastily.
'Well, it 'pears they got some rotgut—two gallon of it—from somewheres last night, and of course, all got as drunk as h–, down to the old shanty behind the gin—they went thar so's I shouldn't suspicion nothin'. They played cards, and quarrelled and fit, and Hurry's John he cut Timberlake bad—cut Wilkie, too, 'cross the hand, but ain't hurt him much!'
'Hurry's John! I always knew that nigger had a d–d ugly temper!' I'll sell him, by – ! I won't have him on the place a week longer. Is Timberlake badly hurt?'
'He's nigh killed, I reckon. Got a bad stick in the ribs, and a cut in the shoulder, and one in the face—bled like a hog, he did! Reckon he may get over it. I've done what I could for him.'
The Colonel's handsome face was inflamed with passion; he strode up and down, venting imprecations of an intensity only to be achieved by an enraged Southerner. Presently he stopped and asked abruptly:
'Where did they get the liquor from?'
'I don't know. Most likely from old Whalley, down to the landing. He's mean enough for anything.'
'If I can prove it on him, I'll run him out of the country! I'll—I'll—d–n it! I'll shoot him!' And the Colonel continued his imprecations, this time directing them toward the supposed vender of the whiskey.
'These men are the curse of the country! the curse of the country!' he repeated, excitedly; 'these d–d mean, low, thieving, sneaking, pilfering, poor whites! They teach our negroes to steal, they sell them liquor, they do everything to corrupt and demoralize them. That's how they live, by –! The slaves are respectable, compared to them. By –, they ought to be slaves themselves—only no amount of paddling10 would get any work out of their d–d lazy hides! I almost wish we might have a war with the Yankees: we should get some of 'em killed off, then!'
How little Colonel – thought, as he uttered these words, 'so wicked and uncivic' (as Gellius says of a similar wish on the part of a Roman lady, for which she was fined the sum of twenty-five thousand pounds brass), that in the future lay such dire fulfilment of them! Apropos of the subject, what fitting tools for the purposes of rebellion have these hated 'poor whites' proved themselves!—their ignorance, their vices, their brutality rendering them all the more appropriate instruments for the work in hand. It would seem, almost, as if a diabolic providence had prepared them for this very result.
'I must ride over and see about this business at once,' resumed the Colonel. 'Mr. –, I can very well suppose you'd rather be spared accompanying me, so make yourself at home for an hour or two. I won't be a minute longer than I can help. Perhaps you'd better not mention this unfortunate affair up at the house until I return; it'll shock the girls, and I'm very careful to keep all unpleasant things out of their way. It's the first time such an atrocity has occurred on this plantation, believe me.'
And, ordering his horse, he rode off with the overseer. I should really have preferred visiting the scene of the recent tragedy, but my host's wish to the contrary was evident, and I knew enough of Southern sensitiveness with respect to the ugly side of their 'institution' to comply. (I had been advised by a fellow countryman not to attend a slave sale in Charleston, lest my curiosity might be looked upon as impertinent, and get me into trouble; but I did it, and, I am bound to say, without any evil consequences.) So I retraced my steps toward the house, presently encountering the lazy gentleman, and one in black, who was introduced to me as the Reverend Mr. –, an Episcopal clergyman of Beaufort, also a resident on an adjacent island.
The lazy gentleman inquired after Colonel –. Judging that my host's caution, as to secrecy, was only intended to apply to his daughters, I made no scruple of relating what I had heard. My auditors were at once more than interested—anxious. Whenever a negro breaks bounds in the South, everybody is on the alert, a self-constituted detective, judge, inquisitor, and possible executioner. Eternal vigilance is the price of—slavery!
'That boy born on the plantation?' asked the clergyman, when the affair had been discussed at considerable length.
'Yes! He's a valuable hand, too; I've known him pick seven hundred and fifty pounds of cotton in a day—of course, for a wager.'
'The Colonel will have to sell him, I suppose? he can't keep him after this.'
'Reckon so, though he hates to part with any of his hands. This trouble wouldn't have happened, if it hadn't been for the whiskey, I've no doubt. The rascal who sold it ought to be responsible.'
'Are crimes originating in drunkenness common among the negroes?' I asked.
'Well, no!' answered the clergyman, deliberately; 'I can't say that. But most of them will drink, if they get an opportunity—the field hands especially; and then they're apt to be quarrelsome, and if there's a knife handy, they'll use it.'
'That's so,' assented the lazy gentleman, nodding. 'You Englishmen and Yankees—excuse me for coupling you together!—know very little of negro character; and, because the darkies have a habit of indulging in unmeaning laughter on all occasions, you think them the best-tempered people in existence. In reality their tempers are often execrable—infernal!' And he compacently blew a ring of tobacco-smoke into the mild, humid morning. The clergyman looked on assentingly.
'They can never be trusted with any responsibility involving the exercise of authority without abusing it. They ill use animals on all occasions—treat them with positive brutality, and sometimes whip their children so unmercifully that we have to interfere. I don't know what would become of them without us, I'm sure!'
'What do you think of their religious convictions?' I asked of the clergyman, when the speaker had arrived at his comfortable, characteristically Southern conclusion.
'Our best negroes are unquestionably pious,' he answered; 'and some of them have a very earnest sense of their duties as to this life and the next; but I regret to say that a good deal of what passes for religion among them is mere exitement, often of a mischievous and sensual character.'
'Heathenish! quite heathenish!' added the lazy gentleman. 'Did you ever see a shout, Mr. –?'
I responded in the negative, and inquired what it was.
'Oh, a dance of negro men and women to the accompaniment of their own voices. It's of no particular figure, and they sing to no particular tune, improvising both at pleasure, and keeping it up for an hour together. I'll defy you to look at it without thinking of Ashantee or Dahomey; it's so suggestive of aboriginal Africa.'
I had an opportunity, subsequently, of witnessing the performance in question, and can indorse the lazy gentleman's assertion. Inheriting the saltatory traditions of their barbarous ancestry, the slaves have also a current fund of superstition, of a simple and curious character. But further ethical disquisitions were here cut short by the appearance of the Colonel's daughters, when the conversation was at once changed, as by tacit consent of all three of us. What their father had told me, relative to his solicitude to keep them in ignorance of all 'unpleasant things' accruing from the fundamental institution, was in perfect accordance with Southern instincts. I had observed similar instances of habitual caution before, reminding me of the eulogized tendency toward 'Orientalism' alluded to in the previous chapter. And, of all people, South-Carolinians possess the equally rare and admirable faculty of holding their tongues, when there is occasion for it.
We joined the ladies in a walk. As the elder had much to say to the clergyman about mutual acquaintances, while her fat relative strolled carelessly by her side, her sister naturally fell to my companionship. With a rather handsome and intelligent girl I should have preferred to converse on general topics than the one with which I had been already nauseated at Charleston—secession; but she was full of it, and would not be evaded. Very soon she asked me what I supposed would be the sentiment in England toward the seceding States, in the assumed event of their forming a confederacy.
I told her, as I then believed, that it would be adverse, in consequence of the national hostility to slavery, appealing to her own British experience for confirmation.
'Yes,' she said, 'they were all abolitionists in England, and could hardly credit us when we told them that we owned negroes. They thought all Southerners must be like Legree in Uncle Tom's Cabin! But papa, who went to the club houses, and mixed with the aristocracy, says that they are much better informed about us; that they were opposed to emancipation in the West Indies, and have always regarded it as a great mistake. And England must have cotton, you know.'
'If there's a war between the North and South, won't you find it very difficult to retain your negroes?' I asked, waiving the immediate question.
Miss – responded by the usual assertion of the fidelity of the slaves to their owners.
'What if the new Government resorts to emancipation as a weapon against you?' I made this inquiry, thinking it possible that this might be done at the outset. Like other foreigners, though familiar with the North, I had not supposed that nearly two years of civil war, with its inevitable expenditure of blood and treasure, would be needed to induce this direct and obvious means of subduing a rebellion. Englishmen, it is known, have ferocious ideas on the subject, as witness India.
'If the slaves rose, we should kill them like so many snakes!' was the answer. And the young lady's voice and flashing eyes showed that she was in earnest.
Our promenade lasted until the return of the Colonel, who presently took a private opportunity of informing me that the wounded slave would probably survive, and that he had sent for a surgeon from an adjoining plantation, expressing some apprehension that delay or indifference on his part might involve fatal consequences.
'It's Christmas time, you see, and perhaps he won't care about coming,' said my host. I may add that his anticipation was in part verified by the result, 'the doctor' not appearing till the following morning. Thanks, however, to a rough knowledge of surgery on the part of the overseer, aided by the excellence of his constitution, 'Timberlake' recovered. I will mention here, in dismissing the subject, that 'Hurry's John' was subsequently sold to a Louisiana sugar-planter, a fate only less terrible to a negro than his exportation to Texas.
Within an hour of our return to the house, we partook of an excellent and luxurious Christmas dinner, to which birds of the air, beasts of the earth, and fish of the sea had afforded tribute, and the best of European wines served as an appropriate accompaniment. The meal was, I think, served earlier than usual, that we might attend the event of the day, the negro weddings.
These were solemnized at a little private church, in the rear of which was absolutely the most enormous live-oak I had ever seen, its branches, fringed with pendent moss, literally covering the small churchyard, where, perhaps, a dozen of the – family lie buried—a few tombstones, half hidden by the refuse of the luxuriant vegetation, marking their places of sepulture. The plain interior of the building had been decorated with evergreens in honor of the time and the occasion, under the tasteful direction of the young ladies, who had also contrived to furnish white dresses and bouquets for the brides. These, duly escorted by their future husbands, clad in their best, and looking alternate happiness and sheepishness, had preceded us by a few minutes, and were waiting our arrival, while all around beamed black faces full of expectation and interest.
We walked through a lane of sable humanity—for the church was too small to contain a fourth of the assembled negroes—to the little altar, before which the six couples were presently posed by the clergyman, in front of us and himself. That done to everybody's satisfaction, the Colonel stationed to give away the brides—an arrangement that caused a visible flutter of delight among them—and as many lookers-on accommodated within the building as could crowd in, the ceremony was proceeded with, the clergyman using an abbreviated form of the Episcopal service, reading it but once, but demanding separate responses. I noticed that he omitted the words 'until death do ye part,' and I thought that omission suggestive.
The persons directly concerned behaved with as much propriety as if they had possessed the whitest of cuticles, being quiet, serious, and attentive; nor did I detect anything indecorous on the part of the spectators, beyond an occasional smile or whisper by the younger negroes, whose soft-skinned, dusky faces and white eyeballs glanced upward at the six couples with admiring curiosity, and at us, visitors, with that appealing glance peculiar to the negro—always, to my thinking, irresistibly touching, and suggestive of dependence on, humility toward, and entreaty for merciful consideration at the hands of a superior race. Perhaps, however, the old folks enjoyed the occasion most, particularly the negresses: one wrinkled crone, of at least fourscore years, her head bound in, the usual gaudy handkerchief, and her hands resting on a staff or crutch, went off into a downright chuckle of irrepressible exultation after the closing benediction, echoed more openly by the crowd of colored people peeping in at the doors and windows.
The ceremony over, the concourse adjourned to a large frame building, part shed, part cotton-house, ordinarily used for storing the staple plant of South Carolina, before ginning and pressing. The Colonel had sent his year's crop to Charleston, and the vacant space was now occupied by a triple row of tables, set out with plates, knives and forks, and drinking utensils. Here, the newly married couples being inducted into the uppermost seats, as places of honor, and the rest of the company accommodated as well as could be effected, a substantial dinner was served, and partaken of with a gusto and appreciation only conceivable in those to whom such an indulgence is exceptional, coming, like the occasion, but once in a year. Upward of a hundred and fifty persons sat down to it, exclusive of those temporarily detailed as waiters, who presently found leisure to minister to their own appetites. Their owner surveyed the scene with an air of gratification, in which I could not detect a trace of his recent serious discomposure. I am well persuaded, however, that he had not forgotten it, as that the cause of it was known among the negroes; I thought I observed evidences of it in their looks and deportment, even amid the general hilarity.
The ladies had returned to the house, and we were about following them, when the clatter of a horse's hoofs was heard without, and the officious voices of the negroes announced the arrival of a visitor or messenger for the Colonel, who stepped forward to meet him. A young man, clad in a coarse homespun gray uniform, scantily trimmed with red worsted, and a French military cap, alighted, and addressed our friend in a faltering, hesitating manner, as though communicating some disastrous intelligence. I saw the Colonel turn pale, and put his hand to his head as if he had received a stunning blow. Instinctively the three of us rushed toward him.
'My God! what's the matter? what has happened, –?' inquired the clergyman.
'Philip! Philip! my boy's dead—shot himself by accident!' was the answer.
A very few words explained all, The young volunteer had fallen a victim to one of those common instances of carelessness in playing with loaded firearms. While frolicking with a comrade, at his barracks, he had taken up his revolver, jestingly threatening to shoot. The other, grasping the barrel of the cocked pistol, in turning it round, had caused its discharge, the bullet penetrating the breast of the unfortunate owner of the weapon. Conveyed to the hospital, he had died within an hour after his arrival.
Our holiday-making, of course, came to a sudden termination. Next day I accompanied the Colonel to Charleston, to claim the body of his deceased son, and not long afterward parted with him, on my return to the North.