Twelve Years a Slave

by Solomon Northup

  125. Wilson writes of the whipping of slaves from morning until night; this reported continual whipping raises questions about how such violence against the bodies of slaves might have affected their work and value. While there may have been countless acts of individual cruelty and even a single whipping would be abhorrent, Wilson’s claim of around-the-clock whippings may have been a dramatic embellishment to appeal to the book’s audience. This continuous violence would have run counter to the unwritten Plantation Survival Code designed to restrain the slaves and maintain the status quo under the strategy described by William Prince Ford in the narrative [See endnote 112]. The slave owner’s investment in slaves represented the extent of his negotiable property [See endnote 58].

  Available are written records for five people who lived on these same Boeuf plantations, and they provide no description of daily atrocities in Boeuf plantation country. One of the five people, William O’Neal, was a slave himself during the same period as Northup who dealt with the same people; he also employed a ghost writer for his own book. O’Neal made enough money on his free time to buy his freedom. In dealing with his white master and son in his purchase, O’Neal told of their dishonesty, causing him to pay twice the price for himself, much higher than the price upon which the slave had agreed [See O’Neal, chapter 6].

  126. While there is a lack of evidence in Bayou Boeuf antebellum records suggesting a general, frequent use of extraordinary violence against slaves, there was at least one instance of an extrajudicial execution of nine slaves, who were hanged for an aborted insurrection headed by another slave named Lew Cheney, as described in a later chapter of Twelve Years a Slave, Chapter 17 [See Eakin, Rapides Parish: An Illustrated History, 26]. There were also cases of violence against abolitionists. A letter from Ralph Smith Smith of Waverly Plantation alludes to the murder of an abolitionist who came into the area to encourage slaves to organize against the planters.

  127. Cotton picking did not change very much from Northup’s years on Bayou Boeuf to the editor’s years growing up on Compromise Plantation on the same bayou in the 1920s and 30s. Skill and speed at cotton picking were highly admired during both periods. Patsey’s skill at cotton picking evoked the deepest admiration, for rare cotton pickers in her day achieved local stardom for what seemed to them the magic number of pounds: 300. However, it is doubtful that she possessed the skill to pick 500 pounds. In the editor’s day, she watched the high respect shown to the best cotton pickers when the cotton was weighed at the end of the day. However, those numbers caused anxious looks on some faces of pickers if they might not have picked as much that day as they had hoped and therefore might lose status among their peers. There were looks of triumph and looks of disappointment, but everybody admired the picker who could pull the soft, fluffy cotton from the burr that held it tightly. Residents of the Boeuf region always looked forward to cotton season. The white sea of cotton was beautiful, the hottest weather was over, and the competition among people laughing while their fingers were flying to pick the largest quantity lifted everyone’s spirit.

  128. The work hours in the field were long. According to Gray:

  In the south as a whole hours of labor were about the same as for farm work in other parts of the United States; that is, from 15 to 16 hours a day in the busy season, including meal time and intervals allowed for rest . . . Breakfast was sent to the field, and a half hour allowed for eating. Two hours of rest were given at noon. Work stopped at sundown, but in rush seasons might be prolonged until dark . . . In the winter season and in ‘lay-by’ periods labor requirements were likely to be lighter. . . . It was the usual custom to allow Sundays to be free except in rush periods. [See Gray, 557]

  Planters did work their slaves on Sundays; by Louisiana law, slaves were to be paid for Sunday work. Cotton pickers did not work in the moonlight in the fields of this area because the unwritten code by which planters operated would not allow it, if for no other reason. An effort was made by a large planter on Red River named Levi Wilson to work his seventy-five slaves at night, at least twenty miles from Cheneyville. His slaves were to pick at night by building large bonfires on the turning rows to provide light. Area planters called on him and had his slaves picked up and sold, returning the money to him. [See Robert to Eakin, August 1963]. Planters in these situations operated to protect their livelihood and lifestyle, and joined forces with other planters to enforce the unwritten rules for slave owners. The deviating planter had no choice but to comply with demands [See Gray, 511].

  129. What the slave had for food was largely decided by the effort made by the slave and his family members. People helped themselves to the plentiful resources of fields, streams, and woodlands of this frontier period. As one black woman explained, “We took what we had and made it into what we needed.” Some slaves raised hogs in their back yards to kill for winter meat and had chickens as well. Nobody lived on small portions of corn and pork. The fatty meat needed for cooking vegetables was probably issued to the slaves. A few planters had food cooked to serve all slaves during times when work required every hand available to complete jobs such as picking cotton “before bad weather set in.” One common food, “cush-cush,” no doubt introduced by the Louisiana French, is made of cornmeal dampened and fried in a small amount of grease. This is still a favorite for many Louisianians. Small animals were also popular with slaves. As Solomon Northup recounts: “The flesh of the coon is palatable, but there is nothing in all butcherdom so delicious as roasted possom.” In the rich soil ditch banks along the fields grew pumpkins and cushaw, and ordinarily planters reserved many rows in the fields for vegetables, ready for the picking to everybody on the plantation. Wild turkey, deer, squirrels, quail, doves, and rabbits populated the woodlands in the back of the plantations in the frontier days. Wild pecans and walnuts, berries and mayhaws came with the spring. The many waterways held a plentiful supply of fish for catching or seining even as late as the 1950s.

  130. The claim that slaves were expected to sleep on foot-wide boards and use pieces of wood for pillows seems to stretch credulity, so it’s possible that the ghost writer was extending Solomon’s comments regarding a type of punishment to his daily experience. One would expect the slave to sleep on the ground rather than on a board too narrow for his body. Slave owners generally wanted their workers to receive a reasonable amount of rest simply because their livelihood depended on the slave’s productivity.

  After the cotton crop was picked, there was always “scrap cotton” in the fields to be used to fill mattresses, pillows, and quilts. In the settlement period, moss hung in great swabs from limbs of the trees, and winds left some of it on the ground. Even shucks were washed and dried, then used for some mattresses. Everything needed for building a simple bed was readily available at little or no cost.

  Moss was picked and sold to gins in Louisiana until the modern era, when the industry disappeared due to the development of synthetic material. Martinez writes of the benefits of moss as a stuffing:

  No known insect will attack moss fibre, eat, destroy or live within it. Moss ranks next to curled hair in resiliency. That is why it is desirable for use in upholstery. Owing to the large amount of waste matter and the resultant loss of weight with each handling, moss is, contrary to current opinion, not a cheap filler for furniture. It is used only in the finest and most expensive furniture or cushions. [See Martinez, 7]

  131. Log houses were built when the settler had chosen a site where he and his family expected to live. Trees had to be cleared from the land for a house site as well as to begin to farm, a process that took considerable time, from the cutting down of the trees to picking up debris to plowing. Dirt floors were commonplace and became surprisingly hard and usable. In the antebellum period most chimneys were made of mud mixed with moss, and the fireplaces served both for warmth and for cooking. Some houses and cabins for slaves were built of brick made from clay in the area. These adobe bricks were sun-dried and sun-baked; they were soft but durable, since many slave
quarters with brick cabins survived until mid-twentieth century [See Pete Smith interview].

  132. Sweet potatoes were a staple along the Boeuf in the antebellum period.

  133. There were no cellars due to Louisiana’s low land. Louisiana’s elevation ranges from five feet below sea level in parts of New Orleans to 535 feet above sea level at the top of Mt. Driskill, the highest point in Louisiana, located in Bienville Parish.

  134. Meat with maggots in it would probably not have intentionally been distributed to valuable slaves whose productivity was a primary concern of the planter.

  135. In 1699, when the first European settlers were sent by France’s King Louis XIV to Louisiana to occupy the land before England or Holland did, they found a small animal which was good for neither milk nor their meat. “Boeuf,” meaning ox or bull animal in French, was thus associated with the streams where wild cattle clustered along the banks at a watering hole. There are several Bayou Boeufs and a River Boeuf in the state. The French called the streams “the Boeuf” because of the many wild cattle watering at the streams [See Prichard, 35].

  136. Vegetables are grown in spring, summer, and fall. Flowers bloom throughout the year.

  Chapter Thirteen

  137. Solomon Northup would have heard of “thinning cotton” on Bayou Boeuf, the name applied to this procedure. It had probably been passed down by generations of planters. After the planting when seeds were sown in a row, the plants were thinned by scraping clear a prescribed distance between each plant.

  138. Edwin Epps owned a 300-acre plantation.

  139. Dr. Robert Dumville Windes [referred to as Wines; see Bennett, Daybook, December 12, 1838] owned twenty-nine slaves in 1855. His grave is marked and visible in the Ferguson graveyard, only a few miles from Epps’s plantation. George Windes of Brea, California, descendant of Dr. Windes, shared the small Civil War diary of 1863 kept by Nathaniel Van Woert, Windes’ ancestor and a member of Boone’s Battery, which was comprised of residents of Avoyelles and Rapides parishes. The excerpt relates to the experience of Van Woert at Port Hudson in 1863. Port Hudson is located on the east bank of the Mississippi River about thirty miles south of Baton Rouge, Louisiana:

  January 23, 1863 - There were [?] rows of white cotton tucking tents facing toward each other with the officer tents facing the avenue formed by the company’s tents . . . Was then assigned to Sergeant Griffin’s Gun Squad and became a member of mess number one, thanks to the courtesy of Mr. Robert Dumville Windes of Avoyelles Parish, who was already a member of it. He was my wife’s cousin and only son of Dr. Windes, a planter and practicing physician living near Holmesville in Bayou Boeuf. Young Windes was a typical southerner, a graduate of a Kentucky college, was thoroughly educated especially in the classics and also took a post-graduate course in law. He had his own body-servant with him, a faithful negroman named Rice . . . [See Van Woert, January 23, 1863 to July 13, 1863]

  140. In Chapter 12, “When a new hand . . . is sent for the first time into the field, he is whipped up smartly” [See Twelve Years a Slave, 165]. In this chapter, “Epps threatened the severest flogging, but in consideration of my being a ‘raw hand,’ concluded to pardon me on that occasion.” It is therefore difficult to determine the circumstances under which this custom applied.

  141. See endnote 125.

  142. It took Edwin Epps six years, beginning in 1845, to pay $2,500 for “that certain tract or parcel of land, situated lying and being the Parish of Avoyelles, on the East side of Bayou-Boeuf, & bounded above by lands of John A. Glaze and below by lands of Fuselier and in the rear by those of Carey (Keary) & brother, containing the quantity of three hundred acres, more or less . . .” Witnesses included neighbors Mathew Vernon, James Burns, and Francis Collum [See Sale of Land, 90].

  143. The U.S. Slave Census for 1850 confirms the list of Epps slaves: Abram—male, forty years old, black (actual age: sixty); Wiley—male, thirty-four years old, black (actual age: forty-eight); Phebe—female, thirty-seven years old, black; Bob—male, twenty years old, black; Henry—male, seventeen years old, black; Edward—male, eleven years old, black; Patsey—female, nineteen years old, black (actual age: twenty-three); Susan—female, died; Platt—male, thirty-four years old, black (actual age: forty-two).

  144. Both William Tassle and James Burford (“Buford” in the narrative) are listed in the 1840 U.S. Census for Williamsburg County, South Carolina. The financial situation of Burford reflects the circumstances of many planters whose yearly profits were as undependable as the weather. Substantial wealth existed mostly among landowners with political clout who were recipients of huge acreages of lands across the South, land that appreciated considerably in value with every passing decade.

  145. Chain gangs were not a common method of transporting slaves. More often, slaves walked, rode in wagons, or rode on mules or occasionally horses, as described in manuscripts from that period, such as the Rosa Cheney diary of her family’s long trek to Texas to avoid the Union troops invading the Lower Red River Valley [See Cheney].

  Chapter Fourteen

  146. Caterpillars ate large portions of the cotton crops on Bayou Boeuf plantations in the Cheneyville area during the 1840s and 1850s [See Bennett to Belden]: “My business has been as good as I could expect for this season of the year, better than it will be for the remainder of the year. The Cotton Crop of this Parish will fall short more than one half from last year’s crop. The catapillars [sic] are literally eating up the cotton through this section of the country . . .” [See Bennett to Belden]. On the same day, Ezra Bennett wrote to Mr. C. Toledano: “The caterpillars are doing immense damage to the present crop of cotton. [T]hey have eaten the laves [sic] clean from the stalk and are now eating the green bowls...[See Bennett to C. Toledano]. On March 5, 1842, Bennett wrote to his factor: “Times are cruel tight in the country & can’t be got on any terms . . .” [See Bennett to Loflin and Stephens]. DeBow’s Review, which began publication in New Orleans in 1846, ran articles about the increased numbers of caterpillars infesting the fields during the period [See DeBow’s Review, 2: 277, 354; 3: 535-43]. Ezra Bennett wrote to his brother in 1847: “My cotton is about as good as my neighbors which is generally poor. I do not think there will be over half or two thirds crop provided the worms do not come to eat it up” [See Bennett to Dear Brother Charles].

  The plight of cotton planters had reached a critical low during the prior decade, with the Andrew Jackson-Biddle Bank War bringing depression and hitting the bayou country hard in the mid-1830s.

  147. Sending slaves to work in St. Mary’s Parish cane fields often took place, and there was a similar sending of slaves when help was needed by cotton planters of Cheneyville during cotton picking in the fall. Some area cotton planters also operated sugar cane plantations in St. Mary’s Parish. There were kinship ties between the populations of the two parishes. Mrs. Esther Wright stated that Baynard Robert, an uncle of Edwin Epps’ wife, owned a sugar plantation there. When as a young man Ezra Bennett arrived around 1830 from Nunda, New York, he came to visit his uncle, Joel Coe, in St. Mary’s Parish. From there he went to Cheneyville to visit relatives of Joel Coe [See Wright interview with Walter Fleming].

  148. Bayou Teche is one of the most beautiful of Louisiana bayous. It flows into the Atchafalaya River in South Louisiana, made famous by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his epic poem “Evangeline.”

  149. Alanson Green Pearce (“Alonson Pierce” in the narrative), son of William, Sr. (1816-1863) and Frances Tanner Pearce, owned a plantation, Lone Pine, only a few miles from Oakwold, the home of his parents in Evergreen, Louisiana. Both plantation houses, built before the Civil War, still stand. Patrick Henry Toler was a neighbor of Alanson Pearce on his plantation in Evergreen. Grimball Addison Robert, a half-brother of Mrs. Epps’ father, was born near Cheneyville in 1812 [Stafford, Three Pioneer Families . . ., 76, 345].

  150. Lafayette, established as Vermilionville in 1823, has become over the years an unofficial capital of French Louisiana in the lower souther
n part of the state [See Writers Program of Works Progress Administration, 273].

  151. At Grand Coteau, St. Landry Parish, the Sisters of the Sacred Heart established a Sacred Heart Academy for Girls in 1821. A Jesuit St. Charles College was established at Grand Coteau in 1838 [See Writers Program, 120-122].

  152. Judge William Turner and Mrs. C. Ferguson are among those listed in Champomier’s book stating the sugar production of Louisiana cane planters for 1849-1850: “Mrs. C. Ferguson, thirty-nine, William Turner, nineteen, 58 hhds of sugar, Bayou Salle, St. Mary Parish.” Turner is similarly listed with Mrs. Ferguson in Champomier’s publications of 1850-1851 and 1851-1852 [See Champomier]. These statements were issued annually.

  153. These unwritten expected customs related to Sunday prevailed on all plantations in Louisiana and probably throughout the South. Planters who did not abide by this code of behavior would have been dealt with by their fellow planters. The pay undoubtedly varied from plantation to plantation.

  154. The name Yarney is not listed in the 1840 U.S. Census.

  155. Joseph Jedediah Robert, father of Mrs. Edwin Epps, was an exception among those who taught private lessons in Louisiana before the Civil War. Most teachers came from the North where formal education, both public and private, was available. To control plantation country, an elite group of influential planters throughout the South used private education as the major tool to establish and maintain a caste society.

  156. Many trusted slaves were allowed to use firearms. Some hunted game not only for themselves but for their owners: “Despite strict laws regarding the possession of firearms by slaves, many Negroes had guns and many did hunt . . . The black man added squirrel, turkey, duck, rabbit, and perhaps venison to his diet and also contributed to the master’s table . . . Some animals were caught with simple snares, and the raccoon and opossum were hunted at night with dogs” [See Taylor, 126].