The Great Stain

by Noel Rae

  “One day I’m down in the hog pen and hears a loud agony screaming up to the house. When I got up close I see Marse Tom got mammy tied to a tree with her clothes pulled down, and he’s laying it on her with the bullwhip, and the blood am running down her eyes and off her back. I goes crazy. I say, ‘Stop, Marse Tom,’ and he swings the whip and don’t reach me good, but it cuts just the same. I sees Miss Mary standing in the cookhouse door. I runs round crazy like and sees a big rock, and I takes it and throws it, and it catches Marse Tom in the skull and he goes down like a poled ox. Miss Mary comes out and lifts her pa and helps him in the house and then comes and helps me undo Mammy. Mammy and me takes to the woods for two, three months, I guess. My sisters meets us and grease Mammy’s back and brings us victuals. Pretty soon they say it am safe to for us to come in the cabin and eat at night and they watch for Marse Tom.”

  After a while “we sees Sam and Billie, and they tell us they am fighting over us niggers. Then they done told us the niggers declared to Marse Tom they ain’t gwine be no more beatings and we could come up and stay in our cabin and they’d see Marse Tom didn’t do nothing. And that’s what Mammy and me did. Sam and Billie was the two biggest niggers on the place, and they done got the shotguns out of the house some way or another.

  “One day Marse Tom am in a rocker on the porch and Sam and Billie am standing by with the guns. We all seen five white men riding up. When they gets near, Sam say to Marse Tom, ‘First white man sets his self inside that rail fence gets it from the gun.’ Marse Tom waves the white men to go back, but they gallops right up to the fence and swings off they hosses. Marse Tom say, ‘Stay outside, gentlemen, please do. I done change my mind.’ They say, ‘What’s the matter here? We come to whip you niggers like you done hire us to.’ Marse Tom say, ‘I done change my mind, but if you stay outside I’ll bring you the money.’ They argues to come in, but Marse Tom outtalk them and they say they’ll go if he brings them they three dollars apiece. He takes them the money and they goes away.”

  DELICIA PATTERSON, BORN IN ST. LOUIS IN 1845: “When I was fifteen years old, I was brought to the courthouse, put up on the auction block to be sold. Old Judge Miller from my county was there. I knew him well because he was one of the wealthiest slave owners in the county, and the meanest one. He was so cruel all the slaves and many owners hated him because of it. He saw me on the block for sale, and he knew I was a good worker. So, when he bid for me, I spoke right out on the auction block and told him: ‘Old Judge Miller, don’t you bid for me, ’cause if you do I would not live on your plantation. I will take a knife and cut my own throat from ear to ear before I would be owned by you.’ So he stepped back and let someone else bid for me. My own father knew I was to be for sale, so he brought his owner to the sale for him to buy me, so we could be together. But when father’s owner heard what I said to Judge Miller, he told my father that he would not buy me because I was sassy, and he never owned a sassy nigger and did not want one that was sassy. That broke my father’s heart, but I couldn’t help that.”

  GUS FEASTER told this story of when he was a very young boy on the plantation of Thomas Anderson Carlisle, near the town of Union, S. C. Evans was the overseer; “old” in “old lady” means adult; John was another small boy.

  “Old man Wash Evans was a wicked man. He take vantage of all the slaves when he get half chance. He was a great source of worriment to my mammy, old lady Lucy Price, and another woman, old lady Lucy Charles. My mammy and old lady Lucy was religious womens. That didn’t make no difference with wicked old man Evans.

  “One day Missus sent my mammy and the other old lady, Lucy, to fetch her some blackberries by dinner. Me and John was with them a-picking and filling of the big buckets from the little buckets when old man Evans came riding up. He argued with both mammy and old lady Lucy, and they kept telling him that the Missus want her blackberries and that they was religious womens anyhow and didn’t practice no life of sin and vile wickedness. Finally he got down offen his horse and pull out his whip and allow if they didn’t submit to him he gwine to beat them half to death. At that me and John took off to the woods. My mammy and old lady Lucy start to crying and axing him not to whip them.

  “Finally they act like they gwine to indulge in the wickedness with that old man. But when he tuck off his whip and some other garments, my mammy and old lady Lucy grab him by his goatee and further down and hist [hoist] him over in the middle of the blackberry bushes. With that they call me and John. Us grab all the buckets and us all put out for the big house fast as our legs could carry us, old man Evans just a-hollering and a-cussing down in them briars. Quick as us get to the big house us run in the kitchen. Cilla [the cook] calls Missus. She come and ax what ailing us and why we is so ashy looking. Well, my mammy and old lady Lucy tell her the whole story of they humiliations down on the creek.

  “Missus allowed that it didn’t make no difference if Marse was in Union, [the local town] she gwine to act prompt. So she sent for Mr. Evans, and he took real long to get there, but when he do come, Missus she allow ‘Mr. Evans, us does not need yo’ services on the plantation no more, sir!’ He allow Marse ain’t here. Missus allow ‘I doesn’t want to argue the point with ye, Mr. Evans, for yo’ services has come to an end on this plantation.’ With that, old man Evans go off with his head a-hanging in shame.”

  FANNIE BERRY, OF VIRGINIA, told a similar story about a fellow slave called Sukie: “She was a big strapping nigger gal that never had nothing to say much. She used to cook for Miss Sarah Ann, but old Marsa was always trying to make Sukie his gal. One day Sukie was in the kitchen making soap. Had three great big pots of lye just coming to a boil in the fireplace when old Marsa come in for to get after her about something. He lay into her, but she ain’t answer him a word. Then he tell Sukie to take off her dress. She told him no. Then he grabbed her and pull it down offen her shoulders and try to pull her down on the floor. Then that black gal got mad. She took and punch old Marsa and made him break loose, and then she gave him a shove and push his hind parts down in the hot pot of soap. Soap was near to boiling, and it burnt him near to death. He got up holding his hind parts and ran from the kitchen, not daring yell, ’cause he didn’t want Miss Sarah Ann to know ’bout it.”

  Finally, an event that was more than a spontaneous act of individual defiance and less than an insurrection. Sometimes known as The Christiana Riot, sometimes as The Christiana Tragedy, and also as The Awful Affair at Christiana, it took place in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, on September 10th, 1851—a year after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act and a time when feelings were running high. Very early in the morning of that day, a small posse of slave-catchers, led by Deputy Federal Marshal Henry Kline, approached a two-story stone house in the village of Christiana. Their mission was to recapture four—some say six—slaves who had run away from their owner, Edward Gorsuch, who owned a plantation in Maryland. Gorsuch accompanied the posse, as did several family members.

  Armed fugitives firing on their owner, Edward Gorsuch, and the sheriff’s posse that had come to reclaim them. The white man on horseback was later tried for refusing to assist the sheriff. Gorsuch was killed, two other whites were wounded, and most of the fugitives escaped to Canada. The 1851 event, which took place in Pennsylvania, was known as The Christiana Riot.

  “We came to the house about daylight,” wrote Deputy Marshal Kline in his official statement. “Before reaching the house we came to the orchard, where we saw a negro who espied us and ran back to the house; he was a short, thick-set, chestnut-colored fellow, with a dark spot under his chin. The door was open—the fellow ran up stairs—I walked into the house—I went to the door of the stairway and halloed up to know who was the man that kept the house, I wished him to come, I wanted to speak to him. I then heard them loading their guns. I told them there was no necessity for that, I did not wish to harm anybody, I merely wished two persons that were in the house. They said they would not come down. The old gentleman [Edward Gorsuch] then came to the
door and called them by name, and said if they would come down he would take them along and treat them kindly, and he would forgive them all. He called Nelson by name—he saw one of them and knew him. He then went out of the door and looked up at the window and called there, as he thought he could call them better that way, and they fired right on him. He kind of dodged. They threw an axe out, and then I fired my revolver at them … I read the warrants three different times, and called to them that the owner of the house would be responsible for harboring them. I then gave them ten minutes to consider.

  “In the mean time a white man came up on a sorrel horse with a white face. I asked him if he lived in that neighborhood, he said it was none of my business. I have since found out that his name is Castner Hanway”—a local miller and anti-slavery man. “I told him the reason why I asked that question. I showed him my papers, and he read them, and I called upon him to assist me in the name of the United States. He said he would not, he did not care for any Act of Congress, or anything else. By this time up came another man, as I have since been told by the name of Lewis; he asked me my authority and I handed him my papers, and he read them and handed them to the man on the horse, and he handed them back to me, and then Lewis replied that the Negroes had a right to defend themselves. I then called upon him to assist, and he refused. I asked him his name, and he said it was none of my business. I then asked them both where they lived, he (Hanway) said that I would have to find that out. I then told them what the Act of Congress was, and that by their aid these Negroes would escape. Then came the Negroes, about fifteen or twenty, with guns, and they came in the direction that the white men came from. The first party of Negroes came with their guns pointed towards me, and ready cocked—one yellow-looking fellow came up with a kind of corn-cutter in one hand and a revolver in the other. Doctor Pierce”—a nephew of the owner, Edward Gorsuch—“was present when I read the warrants. When the Negroes came I told these two white men for God Almighty’s sake to keep them from firing on us, I would withdraw my men and leave the Negroes go. Hanway said the Negroes had a right to defend themselves, and he would not interfere, and I replied that they were not good citizens to let the law be put in defiance by the Negroes. Doctor Pierce then remarked, all they wanted was their own property, they did not wish to hurt a hair of their heads. Lewis replied that ‘Negroes were no property’ and then walked away. I then saw another gang of Negroes come with guns and clubs, and Hanway rode towards them and said something, and then our men run and the Negroes fired from every direction.”

  Summoned by a horn blown from an upper window, other groups of armed blacks kept appearing. Then Edward Gorsuch, who had remained near the house, still trying to persuade his slaves to return, was shot. “The son ran to his assistance, and he was shot; and when I saw the old gentleman afterwards, about two hours, he was dead.” A member of the posse was badly wounded in the head, “and Dr. Pierce was also shot at, and hit.” (“Some twenty or thirty holes in my clothes, a buckshot passed through my hat.” A shot also entered his side, another hit his shoulder blade, and “I was struck by a missile thrown also from the window.”) “Dickerson Gorsuch, the son, was dangerously wounded. I also was shot at, but not wounded. Among the Negroes that were armed and who shot was an Indian-looking fellow with long-looking and bushy hair, curious look out of his eyes; another Negro about 30 years old, very dark, big whiskers, a good-sized man; another Negro about 18 years of age, swelled face, yellow color, a light mulatto, round full face, with straw hat on; another black-looking fellow with blue nankeen pants, straw hat on; another yellow-looking fellow with military-cut whiskers, in shirt sleeves; he had likewise a shot-bag over his shoulders. They all had guns, excepting the black good-looking Negro with whiskers; he had a club. I do not know their names. The keeper of the house [William Parker] was a rather tall mulatto. He said we would have to walk over their dead bodies.”

  In the end, a much larger force succeeded in putting down the riot. Several of the leaders, including William Parker, escaped to Canada. At the urging of Secretary of State Daniel Webster, one of the architects of the Compromise of 1850, and with the approval of President Fillmore, thirty-six blacks and five whites were charged with treason—“levying war against the United States.” Castner Hanway, the uncooperative miller, was tried first, with the idea that once he had been found guilty then the other cases would follow suit—except that Hanway was easily acquitted, even the judge complaining that the charge of treason was excessive. (It helped that Anthony Roberts, the U.S. Marshal for Eastern Pennsylvania, was an anti-slavery man who packed the jury with sympathizers. Also, two key prosecution witnesses he had in custody disappeared before the trial.)

  Long before any verdicts were reached the case was judged in the press, in a manner indicating how deep the divisions had become. To Frederick Douglass, who had abandoned the Garrisonian doctrine of non-resistance and “moral suasion,” the conflict provided a lesson “which even the most obtuse may understand, namely, that all Negroes are not such fools and dastards as to cling to life when it is coupled with chains and slavery. This lesson, though most dearly bought, is quite worth the price paid … For never were there, never can there be more sacred rights to defend than were menaced on this occasion. Life and liberty are the most sacred of all man’s rights. If these be invaded with impunity, all others may be, for they comprehend all others …”

  Many abolitionists compared the fight with the hallowed events of the Revolution. “Men who reverence our fathers for throwing British tea into Boston harbor, and shooting to death British soldiers at Lexington and Bunker Hill, cannot fail to do honor to Negroes who repel violence by violence,” declared the Boston clergyman, Theodore Parker. “I say, I rejoice that a negro shot a kidnapper. Black men may now hold up their heads before those haughty Caucasians and say, ‘You see we also can fight!’” The name of Crispus Attucks, the black man who was shot by the British redcoats in the Boston Massacre of 1770, was often invoked.

  The southern press saw things in a different light, as did some northern papers, among them the Rochester Advertiser which declared that the issue was “whether the white races are to maintain their rights and their position, or whether negro mob law is to govern and ride rampant over our laws, constitution and liberties.” If Negroes “wish to provoke a war of the races by re-enacting the bloody scenes at Christiana, they will find our civil and military authorities, and our citizens at large, prepared to defend themselves, and to put down their murderous assaults with an avenging arm that will carry retributive justice home to such vile traitors and assassins.”

  And the Saturday Express, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, ran this headline: “Civil War—The First Blow Struck!”

  Called the “cast-iron man” because of his refusal to bend or compromise, John C. Calhoun was a dominant political figure from 1825, when he became vice president, to his death in 1850. A “fire-eating” defender of states’ rights, it was he who declared that slavery “is, instead of an evil, a good—a positive good.” To prove his point, he thought it fair to compare the condition of the rural American slave with that of the unemployed factory worker in England—“look at the old and the infirm slave on one hand, in the midst of his family and friends, under the kind superintending care of his master and mistress, and compare it with the wretched condition of the pauper in the poorhouse.”

  CHAPTER 12

  THE POSITIVE GOOD

  BETWEEN THE TURN OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AND THE OUTBREAK OF THE Civil War, slavery went from being spoken of in the South as “a necessary evil” to what John C. Calhoun called “a positive good,” and others “a great moral, social and political blessing—a blessing to the slave and a blessing to the master.” This did not of course mean that there had been any improvement in the lives of the slaves; the change was solely a matter of perception—of people convincing themselves of what it was in their interest to believe and seeing what they wanted to see (and not seeing what they did not want to see). Here are some exa
mples of the process at work:

  As his paddle-ship steamed up the Savannah River in the late fall of 1853, the Rev. Nehemiah Adams knew what to expect: “There was one thing which I felt sure I should see on landing, viz., the whole black population cowed down … ‘I am a slave,’ will be indented on the faces, limbs and actions of the bondmen. Hopeless woe, entreating yet despairing, will frequently greet me. How could it be otherwise if slavery be such as our books, and sermons, and lectures, and newspaper articles represent?”

  A Harvard graduate, and pastor of the Union Congregational Church in Boston, Adams’ anti-slavery credentials were impeccable—it was he who only recently had drawn up The Remonstrance of New England Clergymen against the Extension of Slavery into the Contemplated Territories of Nebraska and Kansas. His reason for coming to Georgia for a three month visit was not to investigate slavery on the spot, but to recuperate from an unspecified sickness.

  “The steam boat reached the landing, and the slaves were all about us. One thing immediately surprised me; they were all in good humor, and some of them in a broad laugh. The delivery of every trunk from the tug to the wharf was the occasion of some hit, or repartee, and every burden was borne with a jolly word.” Delighted by these cheerful and colorfully-dressed slaves and their infectious good humor, “I began to laugh with them. It was irresistible. Who could have convinced me, an hour before, that slaves could have any other effect upon me than to make me feel sad?” This first impression was soon confirmed. “Let anyone at the North afflicted with depression of spirits drop down among these Negroes, walk these streets, form a passing acquaintance with some of them, and unless he is a hopeless case he will find himself in moods of cheerfulness never awakened surely by the countenances of the whites in any strange place.”