The Great Stain

by Noel Rae

  March 9, 1770. “The cattle that have died this year are 8 in Lawson’s penn, 5 in Dolmon’s, and 2 steers killed in the same place by Mr. Manuel and the Boy Kit. They were ordered to drive them to the Fork to be raised where they had plenty of food, and they drove them through the same marsh in the corn field where each mired and died. When people can do this notwithstanding they have a plain level road, to be sure correction can never be called severity. (“The Fork” was another of Carter’s plantations. “Correction” was a common term for punishment, usually a whipping. His calling Manuel and other slaves “Mr” is an example of his heavy sarcasm.)

  March 14. “One of my draught oxen, well fed this whole winter with corn, pea vines, rye straw and wheat straw, the night before last broke his neck, entirely by Manuel’s carelessness. He fed the creature and then turned him out of the cow yard, and I suppose going naturally in search of grass it stepped into the ditch or gully and so broke his neck. This is the third draught steer put to a violent death by that cursed villain.

  March 15. “Mr. Tony shall as certainly receive ample correction for his behaviour to me as that he and I live. The day before yesterday he began to pale [fence] in the garden and only fitted the rails to seven posts. When he began to put them up I was riding out and ordered him to leave the gateway into the garden as wide as the two piers next the gate on each side. Nay, I measured the ground off to him and showed him where the two concluding posts were to stand, and … asked him if he understood me. He said he did and would do it so. I had been 2 hours out and when I came home nothing was done and he was gone about another job. I asked him why he served me so. He told me because it would not answer his design. The villain had so constantly interrupted my orders that I had given him about every job this year that I struck him upon the shoulders with my stick”—which being old and brittle “shivered all to pieces; and this morning, for that stroke, which did not raise the least swelling nor prevent the idle dog from putting up the posts as I directed … I say this morning he has laid himself up with a pain in that shoulder and will not even come out … I might as well give up every Negro if I submit to this impudence.

  March 16. “I do believe my old carpenters intend to be my greatest rascals. Guy does not go about any job, be it ever so trifling, that he does not make three weeks or a month of it at least. The silling of my mud-house, a job of not more than 3 days, he has already been above a fortnight about, and this morning when my people went to help to put the sills in, though he said he was ready for them, he [still] had the rotten sills to cut out; and because I told him he should certainly be called to account for it, as I came back truly he was gone, and nobody knew where, and had been gone for some time, but not about my house. Mr. Tony, another rascal, pretends he is full of pain, though he looks much better than any Negro I have.

  March 17. “Tony came abroad [out of his cabin] and was well entertained for his impudence. Perhaps now he may think of working a little. Guy actually ran away. Outlawries are sent out against him for tomorrow’s publication. One [lamb] died last night through Johnny’s carelessness. He wants his correction.

  March 22. “Guy came home yesterday and had his correction for runaway in sight of the people. The two Sarahs came up yesterday pretending to be violent ill with pains in their sides. They look very well, had no fever, and I ordered them down to their work upon pain of a whipping. They went, worked very well with no grunting about pain, but one of them, to wit Manuel’s Sarah, taking advantage of Lawson’s [the overseer] ride to the Fork, swore she would not work any longer and run away and is still out. There is a curiosity in this creature. She worked none last year, pretending to be with child, and this she was full eleven months before she was brought to bed. She has now the same pretense and thinks to pursue the same course, but as I have full warning of her deceit, if I live, I will break her of that trick.

  Tuesday, March 27. “Ball [an overseer] yesterday found some shelled corn as well as eared corn in Manuel’s quarter with one of my bags. Thus has that rascal made good my suspicion either of not giving all the corn he was allowed to the oxen he drove … or else has robbed me of corn as he brought from Mangorike. I have contrived that he shall not fail of a good whipping.

  March 28. “Tony began yesterday to nail my pales up.

  March 30. “I think my man Tony is determined to struggle whether he shall not do as he pleases.” The problem this time was that the ground where the fence was to be built was uneven. Carter told Tony to level the ground, and then rode out; when he returned he found that nothing had been done, so he gave Tony “one small rap” on his shoulder, whereupon Tony “pretended he could not drive a nail, his arm was so sore. I made Nassau”—another slave—“strip his clothes off and examined the whole arm. Not the least swelling upon it … He said the stroke was in his bone, which made all his body ache. At last, looking full upon him, I discovered the Gentleman completely drunk. This I have suspected a great while. I then locked him up for Monday morning’ chastisement.”

  And so it continued.

  June, 1770: “Kindness to a Negro by way of reward for having done well is the surest way to spoil him.” May, 1772: “Every day I discover the sordidness of a slave.” June, 1773: “I find it almost impossible to make a Negro do his work well.” July, 1774: “Nothing so certain as spoiling your slaves by allowing them but little to do; so sure are they from thence to learn to do nothing at all.” August, 1778: “Indeed, slaves are devils, and to make them otherwise than slaves will be to set devils free.”

  Running away was common, though frequently ending in recapture:

  Virginia Gazette, April, 1766. Run away from the subscriber in Hanover about the middle of December last, a likely Negro man named Damon, about 5 feet 9 or 10 inches, has a scar on his forehead and cheek, is a brisk, lively fellow, speaks good English, was born in the West Indies, beats the drum tolerably well, which he is very fond of, and loves liquor; had on when he went away Negro cotton clothes, and an old hat bound round with linen. Whoever takes up the said Negro and contrives him to me, shall have 3 pounds reward.

  —SARAH GIST

  Virginia Gazette, March, 1767. Run away about the 15th of December last, a small yellow Negro wench named Hannah, about 35 years of age; had on when she went away a green plains petticoat, and sundry other clothes, but what sort I do not know, as she stole many from the other Negroes. She has remarkably long hair, or wool, is much scarified under the throat from one ear to the other, and has many scars on her back, occasioned by whipping. She pretends much to the religion the Negroes of late have practised, and may probably endeavour to pass for a free woman, as I understand she intended when she went away, by the Negroes in the neighbourhood. She is supposed to have made for Carolina. Whoever takes up the said slave, and secures her so that I get her again, shall be rewarded according to their trouble.

  —STEPHEN DENCE

  Virginia Gazette, April, 1767. Run away from the subscriber in Norfolk, about the 20th of October last, two young Negro fellows, viz. Will, about 5 feet 8 inches high, middling black, well made, is an outlandish fellow [i.e. born in Africa], and when he is surprised the whites of his eyes turn red; I bought him of Mr. Moss, about 8 miles below York, and imagine he is gone that way, or somewhere between York and Williamsburg. Peter, about 5 feet 9 inches high, a very black slim fellow, has a wife at Little Town, and a father at Mr. Philip Burt’s quarter, near the half-way house between Williamsburg and York. He formerly belonged to Parson Fontaine, and I bought him of Doctor James Carter. They are both outlawed; and ten pounds a piece offered to any person that will kill the said Negroes and bring me their heads, or thirty shillings for each if brought home alive.

  —JOHN BROWN

  Virginia Gazette, September, 1769. Run away from the subscriber in Albermarle, a Mulatto slave called Sandy, about 35 years of age, his stature is rather low, inclining to corpulence, and his complexion light; he is a shoemaker by trade, in which he uses his left hand principally, can do coarse carpenters w
ork, and is something of a horse jockey; he is greatly addicted to drink, and when drunk is insolent and disorderly; in his conversation he swears much, and in his behavior is artful and knavish. He took with him a white horse, much scarred with traces, of which it is expected he will endeavour to dispose; he also carried his shoemakers tools, and will probably endeavour to get employment that way.

  —THOMAS JEFFERSON

  Runaways who formed maroon communities in places like the Great Dismal Swamp, or headed west, were another worry for white colonists. In his 1729 report home Lt. Gov. William Gooch wrote that “a number of Negroes, about fifteen, belonging to a new plantation on the head of James River formed a design to withdraw from their master and to fix themselves in the fastnesses of the neighbouring mountains. They had found means to get into their possession some arms & ammunition, and they took along with them some provisions, their cloaths, bedding and working tools; but the gentleman to whom they belonged with a party of men made such diligent pursuit after them that he soon found them out in their new settlement, a very obscure place among the mountains, where they had already begun to clear the ground, and obliged them, after exchanging a shot or two by which one of the slaves was wounded, to surrender and return back, and so prevented for this time a design which might have proved as dangerous to this country as is that of the Negroes in the mountains of Jamaica to the inhabitants of that island. Tho’ this attempt has happily been defeated, it ought nevertheless to awaken us into some effectual measures for preventing the like hereafter, it being certain that a very small number of Negroes once settled in those parts would very soon be encreas’d by the accession of other runaways.”

  SOUTH CAROLINA

  As worrying to the authorities as the maroon communities was the problem of fugitives heading south to Florida, at that time a Spanish colony. Reporting back to London in October, 1739, General Oglethorpe, the military commander of South Carolina and Georgia’s first governor, explained the situation:

  “Sometime since there was a proclamation published at Augustine in which the King of Spain promised protection and freedom to all Negro slaves that would resort thither.” At this time there were still no slaves in Georgia, but there were plenty in South Carolina, some of whom got word of this offer and escaped to St. Augustine, either by working their way through the back country, or by stealing a boat and sailing there. “They were demanded by General Oglethorpe who sent Lieutenant Demere to Augustine, and the governor assured him of his sincere friendship, but at the same time showed his orders from the Court of Spain, by which he was to receive all runaway Negroes. Of this other Negroes having notice … some of whom belonged to Captain Macpherson, ran away with his horses, wounded his son and killed another man. These marched for Georgia and were pursued, but … reached Augustine, one only being killed and another wounded by the Indians in their flight. They were received there with great honours, one of them had a commission given to him, and a coat faced with velvet.”

  This happened at a time when the long-standing hostility between the Bourbon Alliance (France and Spain) against England was about to result in the War of Jenkins’ Ear, and it was supposed by the English that the Spanish promise of freedom was a stratagem to undermine South Carolina. Proof of this came when examining the causes of the Stono Rebellion of 1739. According to an official report:

  “On the 9th day of September last, being Sunday, which is the day the planters allow them to work for themselves, some Angola Negroes assembled, to the number of twenty; and one who was called Jemmy was their captain. They surprised a warehouse belonging to Mr. Hutchenson at a place called Stonehow; they there killed Mr. Robert Bathurst and Mr. Gibbs, plundered the house and took a pretty many small arms and powder, which were there for sale. Next they plundered and burnt Mr. Godfrey’s house, and killed him, his daughter and son. They then turned back and marched southward along Pons Pons, which is the road through Georgia to Augustine. They passed Mr. Wallace’s tavern towards daybreak, and said they would not hurt him, for he was a good man and kind to his slaves, but they broke open and plundered Mr. Lemy’s house, and killed him, his wife and child. They marched on towards Mr. Rose’s resolving to kill him; but he was saved by a Negro, who having hid him went out and pacified the others. Several Negroes joined them, they calling out ‘Liberty!’, marched on with colours displayed, and two drums beating, pursuing all the white people they met with, and killing man, woman and child when they could come up to them. Colonel Bull, Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina, who was then riding along the road, discovered them, was pursued and with much difficulty escaped & raised the country. They burnt Colonel Hext’s house and killed his overseer and his Wife. They then burnt Mr. Sprye’s house, then Mr. Sacheverell’s, and then Mr. Nash’s house, all lying upon the Pons Pons Road, and killed all the white people they found in them. Mr. Bullock got off, but they burnt his house.

  “By this time many of them were drunk with the rum they had taken in the houses. They increased every minute by new Negroes coming to them, so that they were above sixty, some say a hundred, on which they halted in a field, and set to dancing, singing and beating drums, to draw more Negroes to them, thinking they were now victorious over the whole province, having marched ten miles & burnt all before them without opposition; but the militia being raised, the planters with great briskness pursued them, and when they came up, dismounting, charged them on foot. The Negroes were soon routed, though they behaved boldly, several being killed on the spot. Many ran back to their plantations thinking they had not been missed, but they were there taken and shot. Such as were taken in the field also were, after being examined, shot on the spot. And this is to be said to the honour of the Carolina planters, that notwithstanding the provocation they had received from so many murders, they did not torture one Negro, but only put them to an easy death. All that proved to be forced and were not concerned in the murders and burnings were pardoned. And this sudden courage in the field, and the humanity afterwards, hath had so good an effect that there hath been no farther attempt, and the very spirit of revolt seems over.” Another report mentioned that “fifty of these villains attempted to go home but were taken by the planters who cut off their heads and set them up every mile post.”

  Stono was the largest slave insurrection in the English colonies, but it was not the only one. There had been revolts in South Carolina in 1711 and 1714. In 1720 occurred “a very wicked and barbarous plot of the Negroes rising with a design to destroy all the white people in the country and then to take the town [Charleston],” but, through “God’s will,” the plot “was discovered, and many of them taken prisoners and some burnt, some hang’d and some banish’d.” Some of the plotters “thought to get to Augustine,” and fourteen got as far as Savannah before being caught and executed. Ten years later, the Boston Weekly News-Letter published a letter from Charleston describing “a bloody tragedy which was to have been executed here last Saturday night by the Negroes, who had conspired to rise and destroy us, and had almost bro’t it to pass: but it pleased God to appear for us, and confound their councils. For some of them propos’d that the Negroes of every plantation should destroy their own masters; but others were for rising in a body, and giving the blow at once on surprise; and thus they differ’d. They soon made a great body at the back of the town, and had a great dance, and expected the country Negroes to come & join them; and had not an overruling Providence discovered their intrigues, we had been all in blood …” That same year, 1730, another conspiracy was uncovered in Charleston whose alleged purpose was to massacre all the whites, except the young women.

  There were also alarming stories in the Charleston newspapers, such as this from 1729: “We have an account from Guinea by way of Antigua that the Clare galley, Capt. Murrell, having compleated her number of Negroes, had taken her departure from the coast of Guinea for South Carolina; but was not got ten leagues on her way before the Negroes rose, and making themselves masters of the gunpowder and fire-arms, the captain and the s
hip’s crew took to their long boat and got ashore near Cape Coast Castle. The Negroes ran the ship on shore within a few leagues of the said castle, and made their escape.” Three years later, “Captain John Major, in a schooner from New Hampshire, was treacherously murdered, and his vessel and cargo seized by Negroes.” Later that same year, “the slaves on board a Guinea-man belonging to Bristol, rose and destroyed the whole crew, cutting off the captain’s head, legs and arms.”

  Most whites agreed about the causes of insurrections: slaves dangerously outnumbered them by well over two to one; more than half of all slaves had been imported from Africa, and these were more likely to rebel than those born in the colony. Also, about three quarters of them came from Angola and the Congo and shared a common background, which made it easier for them to act in concert. Whites could also agree that they had been too good-natured and easy-going, and had not done enough to recruit the assistance of the Chickasaw, Catawbaw, Creek and other Indian tribes by offering them “suitable reward to pursue and if possible to bring back the deserters.”

  Another, much less discussed, cause of the uprisings was the way the slaves were treated. One of the few to bear witness to this was the Anglican missionary, Dr. Francis Le Jau, who had been sent out from England by the recently-founded Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. In his reports back home, Le Jau, though cautious and conservative, was often unable to restrain his indignation at what he saw, but could not prevent. “I must inform you of a most cruel contrivance a man has invented to punish small faults in his slaves,” he wrote. “He puts them in a coffin where they are crushed almost to death, and he keeps them in that hellish machine for 24 hours, commonly with their feet chained out and a lid pressing upon their stomach.” On another occasion he wrote of the “unjust, profane and inhumane practices which I thought it was my duty to declare against. A poor slave-woman was barbarously burnt alive near my door without any positive proof of the crime she was accused of, which was the burning of her master’s house, and protested her innocence even to myself to the last. Many masters can’t be persuaded that Negroes and Indians are otherwise than beasts.” Le Jau also complained of a law “in relation to runaway Negroes” whereby “such a Negro must be mutilated by amputation of testicles if it be a man, and of ears if a woman. I have openly declared against such punishment grounded upon the Law of God, which sets a slave at liberty if he should lose an eye or a tooth when he is corrected. Exodus, 21.” (Verses 26 and 27: “And if a man strike the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye’s sake. And if he smite out his manservant’s tooth, or his maidservant’s tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth’s sake.”)