The Great Stain

by Noel Rae

  The estate was divided into four plantations, and “each overseer regulated the hours of work on his own plantation. I saw the Negroes at work before sunrise and after sunset. At about eight o’clock they were allowed to stop for breakfast, and again, about noon, to dine. The length of these rests was at the discretion of the overseers or drivers, usually, I should say, from half an hour to an hour. There was no rule. The number of hands directed by each overseer was considerably over one hundred. The ploughs at work, both with single and double mule teams, were generally held by women, and very well held, too … Twenty of them were ploughing together, with double teams and heavy ploughs. They were superintended by a Negro man who carried a whip, which he frequently cracked at them, permitting no dawdling or delay at the turning; and they twitched their ploughs around on the head-land, jerking their reins and yelling to their mules, with apparent ease, energy and rapidity.”

  As to the other field-hands, “they are constantly and steadily driven up to their work, and the stupid, plodding and machine-like manner in which they labor is painful to witness. This was especially the case with the hoe-gangs. One of them numbered nearly two hundred hands (for the force of two plantations was working together), moving across the field in parallel lines with a considerable degree of precision. I repeatedly rode through the lines at a canter, with other horsemen, often coming upon them suddenly, without producing the smallest change or interruption in the dogged action of the laborers or causing one of them, so far as I could see, to lift an eye from the ground. I had noticed the same thing with smaller numbers before, but here, considering that I was a stranger, and that strangers could but very rarely visit the plantation, it amazed me very much. I think it told a more painful story than any I had ever heard of the cruelty of slavery. It was emphasized by a tall and powerful Negro who walked to and fro in the rear of the line, frequently cracking his whip, and calling out in the surliest manner, to one and another, ‘Shove your hoe there! Shove your hoe!’”

  Shortly afterward “I happened to see the severest corporeal punishment of a Negro that I witnessed at the South.” Olmsted had just met up with one of the overseers “and he was showing me his plantation. In going from one side of it to the other we had twice crossed a deep gully, at the bottom of which was a thick covert of brushwood. We were crossing it a third time, and had nearly passed through the brush, when the overseer suddenly stopped his horse, exclaiming, ‘What’s that? Hallo! Who are you, there?’

  “It was a girl lying at full length on the ground at the bottom of the gully, evidently intending to hide herself from us in the bushes.

  “‘Who are you, there?’

  “‘Sam’s Sall, sir.’

  “‘What are you skulking there for?’ The girl half rose, but gave no answer. ‘Have you been here all day?’

  “‘No, sir.’

  “‘How did you get here?’ The girl made no reply. ‘Where have you been all day?’ The answer was unintelligible. After some further questioning, she said her father accidentally locked her in when he went out in the morning.

  “‘How did you manage to get out?’

  “‘Pushed a plank off, sir, and crawled out.’

  “The overseer was silent for a moment, looking at the girl, and then said, ‘That won’t do; come out here.’ The girl arose at once and walked towards him. She was about eighteen years of age. A bunch of keys hung at her waist, which the overseer espied. He said, ‘Your father locked you in; but you have got the keys.’ After a little hesitation, she replied that these were the keys of some other locks; her father had the door-key.”

  Whether her story was true or false could have been ascertained in two minutes by riding to the gang with which her father was at work; but the overseer had made up his mind. “That won’t do,’ said he; ‘get down.’ The girl knelt on the ground; he got off his horse, and holding him with his left hand, struck her thirty or forty blows across the shoulders with his tough, flexible raw-hide whip (a terrible instrument for the purpose). They were well laid on, at arm’s length, but with no appearance of angry excitement on the part of the overseer. At every stroke the girl winced and exclaimed, ‘Yes, sir!’ or ‘Ah, sir!’ or ‘Please, sir!’ not groaning or screaming. At length he stopped and said, ‘Now tell me the truth.’ The girl repeated the same story. ‘You have not got enough yet,’ said he. ‘Pull up your clothes—lie down.’ The girl without any hesitation, without a word or look of remonstrance or entreaty, drew closely all her garments under her shoulders, and lay down upon the ground with her face toward the overseer, who continued to flog her with the raw-hide across her naked loins and thighs, with as much strength as before. She now shrunk away from him, not rising, but writhing, grovelling and screaming, ‘Oh don’t, sir! Oh, please stop, master! Please, sir! Please, sir! Oh, that’s enough, master! Oh, Lord! Oh, master, master! Oh, God, master, do stop! Oh, God, master! Oh, God, master!’

  “A young gentleman of fifteen was with us; he had ridden in front and now, turning on his horse, looked back with an expression only of impatience at the delay. It was the first time I had ever seen a woman flogged. I had seen a man cudgelled and beaten in the heat of passion, but never flogged with a hundredth part of the severity used in this case. I glanced again at the perfectly passionless but, rather grim business-like face of the overseer, and again at the young gentleman, who had turned away; if not indifferent, he had evidently not the faintest sympathy with my emotion. Only my horse chafed. I gave him rein and spur and we plunged into the bushes and scrambled fiercely up the steep acclivity. The screaming, yells and the whip strokes had ceased when I reached the top of the bank. Choking, sobbing, spasmodic groans only were heard. I rode on to where the road, coming diagonally up the ravine, ran out upon the cotton-field. My young companion met me there, and immediately afterward the overseer. He laughed as he joined us, and said: ‘She meant to cheat me out of a day’s work, and she has done it, too.’

  “‘Did you succeed in getting another story from her?’ I asked, as soon as I could trust myself to speak.

  “‘No; she stuck to it.’

  “‘Was it not perhaps true?’

  “‘Oh no, sir; she slipped out of the gang when they were going to work, and she’s been dodging about all day, going from one place to another as she saw me coming.’

  “‘Was it necessary to punish her so severely?’

  “‘Oh yes, sir,’ (laughing again). ‘If I hadn’t, she would have done the same thing again to-morrow, and half the people on the plantation would have followed her example. Oh, you’ve no idea how lazy these niggers are. You Northern people don’t know anything about it. They’d never do any work at all if they were not afraid of being whipped.’”

  Another white witness to American slavery was the upper-class and middle-aged Swedish novelist, Fredrika Bremer. A moderate feminist and Christian socialist, she was also a bold traveler, who spent two years—1849-1851—in this country, taking notes as she went. Here she is in New Orleans in mid-winter, attending a slave auction with a medical friend.

  “Dr. D. and I entered a large and somewhat cold and dirty hall, on the basement story of a house, and where a great number of people were assembled. About twenty gentlemanlike men stood in a half circle around a dirty wooden platform, which for the moment was unoccupied. On each side, by the wall, stood a number of black men and women, silent and serious. The whole assembly was silent, and it seemed to me as if a heavy gray cloud rested upon it. One heard through the open door the rain falling heavily in the street. The gentlemen looked askance at me with a gloomy expression, and probably wished that they could send me to the North Pole.

  “Two gentlemen hastily entered; one of them a tall, stout man, with a gay and good-tempered aspect, evidently a bon vivant, ascended the auction platform … He came apparently from a good breakfast, and he seemed to be actively employed in swallowing his last mouthful. He took the auctioneer’s hammer in his hand, and addressed the assembly much as follows:

  �
�‘The slaves which I have now to sell, for what price I can get, are a few home-slaves, all the property of one master. This gentleman having given his bond for a friend who afterward became bankrupt, has been obliged to meet his responsibilities by parting with his faithful servants. These slaves are thus sold, not in consequence of any faults which they possess, or for any deficiencies. They are all faithful and excellent servants, and nothing but hard necessity would have compelled their master to part with them. They are worth the highest price, and he who purchases them may be sure that he increases the prosperity of his family.’

  “After this he beckoned to a woman among the blacks to come forward, and he gave her his hand to mount upon the platform, where she remained standing beside him. She was a tall, well-grown mulatto, with a handsome but sorrowful countenance, and a remarkably modest, noble demeanor. She bore on her arm a young sleeping child, upon which, during the whole auction ceremonial, she kept her eyes immovably riveted, with her head cast down. She wore a gray dress made to the throat, and a pale yellow handkerchief, checked with brown, was tied round her head.

  “The auctioneer now began to laud this woman’s good qualities, her skill, and her abilities, to the assembly. He praised her character, her good disposition, order, fidelity; her uncommon qualifications for taking care of a house; her piety, her talents, and remarked that the child which she bore at her breast, and which was to be sold with her, also increased her value. After this he shouted with a loud voice, ‘Now, gentlemen, how much for this very superior woman, this remarkable, &c., &c., and her child?’

  “He pointed with his outstretched arm and fore-finger from one to another of the gentlemen who stood around, and first one and then another replied to his appeal with a short silent nod, and all the while he continued in this style:

  “‘Do you offer me five hundred dollars? Gentlemen, I am offered five hundred dollars for this superior woman and her child. It is a sum not to be thought of! She, with her child, is worth double that money. Five hundred and fifty, six hundred, six hundred and fifty, six hundred and sixty, six hundred and seventy. My good gentlemen, why do you not at once say seven hundred dollars for this uncommonly superior woman and her child? Seven hundred dollars—it is downright robbery! She would never have been sold at that price if her master had not been so unfortunate,’” &c.,&c.

  “The hammer fell heavily; the woman and her child were sold for seven hundred dollars to one of those dark, silent figures before her. Who he was; whether he was good or bad; whether he would lead her into tolerable or intolerable slavery—of all this, the bought and sold woman and mother knew as little as I did, neither to what part of the world he would take her. And the father of the child—where was he?

  “With eyes still riveted upon that sleeping child, with dejected but submissive mien, the handsome mulatto stepped down from the auction-platform to take her stand beside the wall, but on the opposite side of the room.

  “Next, a very dark young negro girl stepped upon the platform. She wore a bright yellow handkerchief tied very daintily round her head, so that the two ends stood out like little wings, one on each side. Her figure was remarkably trim and neat, and her eyes glanced round the assembly both boldly and inquiringly. The auctioneer exalted her merits likewise, and then he exclaimed, ‘How much for this very likely young girl?’ She was soon sold, and, if I recollect rightly, for three hundred and fifty dollars.

  “After her a young man took his place on the platform. He was a mulatto, and had a remarkably good countenance, expressive of gentleness and refinement. He had been a servant in his former, master’s family, had been brought up by him, was greatly beloved by him, and deserved to be so—‘a most excellent young man!’ He sold for six hundred dollars.

  “After this came an elderly woman, who had also one of those good-natured, excellent countenances so common among the black population and whose demeanor and general appearance showed that she too had been in the service of a good master, and, having been accustomed to gentle treatment, had become gentle and happy. All these slaves, as well as the young girl, who looked pert rather than good, bore the impression of having been accustomed to an affectionate family life.

  “And now, what was to be their future fate? How bitterly, if they fell into the hands of the wicked, would they feel the difference between then and now—horrible would be their lot! The mother in particular, whose whole soul was centered in her child, and who, perhaps, would have soon to see that child sold away, far away from her—what would then be her state of mind?”

  Many of slavery’s defenders were ready to admit that there were cruel masters, but claimed that these were exceptions to an otherwise benevolent institution; as one popular argument ran, just because some husbands murdered their wives, and some wives their husbands, it did not follow that marriage should be abolished. It was also claimed that most cases of brutality were the work of overzealous drivers, who were themselves Negro slaves, or of owners belonging to the lower levels of white society. On the other hand, to be a servant in the household of a well-to-do family that spent half the year on a plantation and half in town, was to enjoy a carefree life of easy duties and mutual affection.

  Unfortunately for this comforting belief, two sisters, Sarah and Angelina Grimké, knew better, and felt morally obliged to say so out loud; and since they were the daughters of Judge Grimké of the Supreme Court of South Carolina, and a leading member of Charleston society, their testimony carried weight. For their boldness the two sisters were ostracized and had to move to Philadelphia, where Angelina married the abolitionist Theodore Dwight Weld, with whom she wrote and edited American Slavery As It Is. Sarah was the first to publish, which she did in 1830:

  “As I left my native state on account of slavery, and deserted the home of my fathers to escape the sound of the lash and the shrieks of the tortured victims, I would gladly bury in oblivion the recollection of those scenes with which I have been familiar; but this may not, cannot be; they come over my memory like gory specters, and implore me with resistless power, in the name of a God of mercy, in the name of a crucified Savior, in the name of humanity; for the sake of the slaveholder as well as the slave, to bear witness to the horrors of the southern prison house.” Of particular importance was the fact that “the actors in these tragedies were all men and women of the highest respectability, and of the first families in South Carolina, and, with one exception, citizens of Charleston; and that their cruelties did not in the slightest degree affect their standing in society.

  Unlike Fanny Kemble in appearance, but no less passionate in her condemnation of slavery, Sarah Grimké, and her sister Angelina, gave up comfortable lives as members of Charleston’s upper class in order to devote themselves to the causes of abolition and women’s rights. Both were persuasive writers, whose works were often confiscated by southern postmasters.

  “A handsome mulatto woman, about 18 or 20 years of age, whose independent spirit could not brook the degradation of slavery, was in the habit of running away: for this offense she had been repeatedly sent by her master and mistress to be whipped by the keeper of the Charleston work-house. This had been done with such inhuman severity as to lacerate her back in the most shocking manner; a finger could not be laid between the cuts. But the love of liberty was too strong to be annihilated by torture; and, as a last resort, she was whipped at several different times and kept close prisoner. A heavy iron collar, with three long prongs projecting from it, was placed round her neck, and a strong and sound front tooth was extracted, to serve as a mark to describe her, in case of escape … These outrages were committed in a family where the mistress daily read the Scriptures, and assembled her children for family worship. She was accounted, and was really, so far as alms-giving was concerned, a charitable woman, and tender-hearted to the poor; and yet this suffering slave, who was the seamstress of the family, was continually in her presence, sitting in her chamber to sew, or engaged in her other household work, with her lacerated and bleeding back, her
mutilated mouth, and heavy iron collar, without, so far as appeared, exciting any feelings of compassion.

  “A punishment dreaded more by the slaves than whipping, unless it is unusually severe, is one which was invented by a female acquaintance of mine in Charleston—I heard her say so with much satisfaction. It is standing on one foot, and holding the other in the hand. Afterwards it was improved upon, and a strap was contrived to fasten around the ankle and pass around the neck; so that the least weight of the foot resting on the strap would choke the person. The pain occasioned by this unnatural position was great; and when continued, as it sometimes was, for an hour or more, produced intense agony. I heard this same woman say that she had the ears of of her waiting maid slit for some petty theft. This she told me in the presence of the girl, who was standing in the room. She often had the helpless victims of her cruelty severely whipped, not scrupling herself to wield the instrument of torture, and with her own hands inflict severe chastisement.” This lady and her husband “were of one of the first families on Charleston.”

  Sarah’s sister, Angelina, also had some stories to tell. One was about “the woman of the highest respectability—one who was foremost in every benevolent enterprise, and stood for many years, I may say, at the head of the fashionable élite of the city of Charleston, and afterwards at the head of the moral and religious female society there … This lady used to keep cowhides, or small paddles (called ‘pancake sticks,’) in four different apartments of her house; so that when she wished to punish, or have punished, any of her slaves, she might not have the trouble of sending for an instrument of torture. For many years, one or other, and often more, of her slaves were flogged every day; particularly the young slaves about the house, whose faces were slapped, or their hands beat with the ‘pancake stick’ for every trifling offence—and often for no fault at all. But the floggings were not all; the scoldings and abuse daily heaped upon them were worse: ‘fools’ and ‘liars,’ sluts’ and ‘husseys,’ ‘hypocrites’ and ‘good-for-nothing creatures,’ were the common epithets with which her mouth was filled when addressing her slaves, adults as well as children. Very often she would take a position at her window, in an upper story, and scold at her slaves while working in the garden, at some distance from the house (a large yard intervening), and occasionally order a flogging. I have known her thus on the watch, scolding for more than an hour at a time, in so loud a voice that the whole neighborhood could hear her; and this without the least apparent feeling of shame. Indeed, it was no disgrace among the slaveholders, and did not in the least injure her standing, either as a lady or a Christian, in the aristocratic circle in which she moved.