Twelve Years a Slave

by Solomon Northup

  157. There is documentation that Indians used fish traps of various kinds as well as cane poles cut from the banks of the streams with a cord holding a baited hook, seines, and other means to secure fish. With “water, water everywhere,” Indians in Louisiana found streams a primary source of food. The French, Spanish, and English settlers also lived off what the land and the streams offered. They adopted the ways of the Indians and added new ideas about securing food.

  158. Douglas Marshall, an aristocrat in the caste society of antebellum Louisiana who seemed to perpetuate the stratification of the Old World, was a descendant of the brother of Supreme Court Justice John Marshall of Virginia. The elite had the money and power to obtain a formal education, which was inaccessible to the vast majority of the population. However, there were small numbers of whites and blacks who individually managed to educate themselves surprisingly well, and some of the moneyed elite did not choose to seek a formal education.

  159. The home of Dr. Jewel, the murdered victim, was in Opelousas, Louisiana, according to Dr. W.D. Haas’ note in 1930 in the flyleaves of his copy of the first edition of Twelve Years a Slave. Dr. Haas (1867-1940), a grandson of Douglas Marshall, was a descendant of an immigrant named Sam Haas, who came from Alsace Lorraine before the Civil War. Sam Haas became a captain in the Civil War, returning to open a country store in central Louisiana at Chicot. He was an astute businessman and loaned money from his own resources that he stored in a safe inside his home, thus beginning a sort of banking operation on the Louisiana frontier. Dr. Haas’ mother was Maccie Marshall, descendant of William Marshall of Virginia, a brother of United States Chief Justice John Marshall [See Holland. Alice Holland is a descendant of Dr. Haas.]

  Chapter Fifteen

  160. Cutting cane on the lead row required the highest skill; all of the cane cutters competed for the honor. Not only was a lead cane cutter setting the pace as the one who could strip the stalk of flags, cut the stalk with one swift strike, and stack the stalk across the rows faster than anybody else, he was recognized as a leader in encouraging the team. Often songs or chants lifted spirits in what was typically forbidding weather.

  161. In addition to Solomon’s recollections of sugarcane production, ghost writer David Wilson also had access to numerous agricultural publications of the period. There were many articles about the sugar industry, growing sugar cane and making sugar. One example of facts about sugar is included in “Culture of the Sugar-Cane,” an article in American Agriculturist:

  There are three varieties of the sugar-cane cultivated in the U.S. The Creole was first raised in Louisiana by the immigrants from the West India Islands. It is the smallest, but yields the richest and most valuable juice. The Otaheite was introduced into Georgia early during the present century, from the Sandwich Islands, and within a few years after, was carried from that state into Louisiana. It produces a large, luxuriant stalk, yielding profusely in juice, which is, however, much inferior in quality to that from the Creole. The blue-ribbon, brought to this country from Jamaica, subsequent to both others, is beautifully variegated with regular longitudinal stripes of blue and yellow, alternating in direction between each joint. It yields a juice of medium quantity and quality; but being by far the hardiest, it has usurped almost the entire sugar plantations of this State. Each of these varieties has undoubtedly originated in the East Indies, where the cane has been cultivated from time immemorial.

  It was formerly the practice to plant the cane in rows, from 2 1/2 to 4 feet apart, and it is perhaps owing to this, and the careless system of culture, that the Creole may have degenerated and become the pigmy plant we now see it. A more rational system has been adopted for many years, by the most intelligent planters, and by them the rows are seldom permitted to be nearer than 8 feet. This is attended with many advantages. The rows contain three, and in some instances four parallel lines of plants, which furnish a greater number of stalks per acre than the more closely planted. They afford room for burying the trash (the worthless tops cut from the cane in the fall and destitute of saccharine matter), and the bagasse (the residuum of the cane after expressing the juice), between the rows, where it can lie undisturbed in the soil till decomposed. The sun and air have free access through the field, both of which are of vital importance in giving the fullest development to the plants; and finally, they allow of the use of the two-horse plow, by which a deeper furrow is made, the grass and weeds are more effectually turned under and destroyed, and a more thorough pulverization of the soil is effected, all of which is accomplished with the same expenditure of the animal, and with half that of the human labor employed with the single horse. Where deep plowing is not required to be repeated, but the destruction of weeds and grass is the only object sought, the greater width of the rows permits the use of the three-share plow, or a large steel-tooth or other cultivator,* by which one laborer will get over six acres in a day instead of two only with the plow. In fields suited to it, this practice has been adopted, the present season, with some of the New York implements, and has been attended with the most satisfactory results.

  In preparing the land for cultivation, after providing a sufficient number of deep ditches as before described the surface is deeply turned over with four-horse plows. Sometimes this is done by a huge plow, called the giraffe, requiring six good animals to move it. The intended bed for the cane is then excavated to a depth of 4 to 6 inches, with a wide fluke, or a double-mould-board plow, leaving a furrow eight to twelve inches wide. The more careful planters clean out this by hand, and place three or four rows of the best plant in parallel lines four inches apart, lapping each and arranging them so that the eyes which occupy opposite sides may germinate horizontally, and shoot upward at the same time, thus giving evenness of growth to each stalk.

  The planting may be commenced in December, and should be completed early in March. If done during the winter, protection from frosts requires that they be covered to a depth of four or five inches. On the approach of warm weather, this earth is removed within an inch or two of the cane, at which depth it is covered if the planting is deferred till this time. This is done to promote early germination, which is of great importance to secure a satisfactory maturity of the cane in this climate.

  After the young shoots appear, the fine earth is gradually brought around and over it, and the plow is used for turning the furrow towards the rows. This operation is repeated as often as is necessary to keep the land sufficiently light and clear of weeds, and gradually lead the soil to the roots. When the cane has acquired sufficient growth to shade the ground, the final operation of ridging up, or laying by the crop, is performed with the plow and the hoe. The cane ought to be so forward as to admit of this by the middle of June.

  *The steel-tooth cultivator is a new and very superior article, admirably adapted for cane as well as all other kinds of culture. It can be had at our agricultural warehouse, (187 Water Street. Price--$7.50 . . . [See “Culture of the Sugar-Cane,” 241-243]

  Another such article providing information about sugarcane cultivation is “Sugar and Slavery in Louisiana” in 1847:

  The report of the Commissioner of Patents contains a list of all the sugar planters in the State of Louisiana with the product of each plantation for the year 1844. The corrected aggregate of the sugar raised in that year is put at 215,000,000 pounds. . . At the beginning of the year there were in operation seven hundred and sixty-two sugar mills, of which four hundred and eight were worked by steam power and three hundred and fifty-four by horse power—the number of planters being about nine hundred. At the end of the year the number of mills had increased to eleven hundred and four, and the number of planters to one thousand eight hundred and fifty . . .

  The sugar plantations of Louisiana lie along the shores of the rivers and bayous . . .

  The way that much of the new States of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, & c., have grown into their great production and prosperity has been by the removal of planters with their slave families from the old t
o the new States . . . [See “Sugar and Slavery in Louisiana,” 55] Still another article on sugar is “The Sugar Crop of Louisiana”:

  It is estimated by competent judges that the crop of sugar in this State will exceed the crop of last year by at least one hundred thousand hogsheads . . . Two hundred and forty thousand hogsheads is an estimate which no one regards as extravagant. At the rate of $50 per hhd., (lower, we believe than a fair average,) this will give the splendid sum of twelve millions of dollars as the value of one single agricultural product of twenty-three parishes of the State . . . there are but fourteen in which sugar is the leading or principal product. In St. Landry, Calcasieu, Lafayette, Vermillion, Avoyelles, Rapides, West Feliciana, and Pointe Coupee, sugar is cultivated to a limited extent, cotton and corn being the chief products, and grazing an extensive employment of the people. [See “The Sugar Crop of Louisiana,” 179]

  162. Winrowing was a familiar scene on Bayou Boeuf during cane cutting time.

  163. Hawkins Mill, located about three miles south of Cheneyville on Waverly Plantation, was the largest sugar mill for many miles. Remains of the mill survived for years, and were said to have come from a terrible explosion. Another Cheneyville slave, William O’Neal, born in 1827, worked building a sugar-house at the same mill in 1848. O’Neal’s description of the work at the sugar mill has a different tone than in David Wilson’s writing:

  By October the tenth the sugar-house is ready for grinding; the fires blaze in the great furnaces, the wheels began to revolve, and it has become a thing of life. William has been inducted into the mysteries of engineering, and as we glance into the sugar-house we see him managing the great engine with deliberation characteristic of his nature.

  The grinding season is a merry time on the sugar plantation, every-thing grows sleek and fat. All are full of life, buoyant and happy. In the fields may be heard many voices blending softly those sweet old plantation songs, once heard never to be forgotten.

  Ah! There is romance indeed lingering about the old sugar plantation, distinctively characteristic of Louisiana. The broad acres of waving cane, where the keen knives glisten in the morning sunlight, wielded by a hundred sturdy hands.

  The heavy two-wheeled carts roll by, laden with juicy cane, its purple stalks like the bloom on the ripened grapes of Italy. Long trains of these immense vehicles are coming and going, in the vain attempt to satiate the maw of that great colossus which is continually belching forth smoke and flame.

  No time for idling now; for day and night all through the grinding season, which lasts until the last stalk of cane has passed through the crushers and emerged from the immense evaporators in the form of commercial sugar, all hands are kept busy. Thus ended the first season at the new sugar-house of Dr. Hawkins. [See O’Neal, The Man Who Sold His Wife, 90-91]

  164. Before the Civil War there were sugar mills, which varied in size, an estimated every mile and a half apart along the bayou from Washington to Cheneyville. Almost all were destroyed during the invasion of Bayou Boeuf in 1863 and 1864.

  P.A. Champomier does not list a Hawkins Mill in his publication, known as the authority on Louisiana sugar mills, 1849-1850. A large Rapides sugar mill is listed as Lambeth and Maddox. In Avoyelles, Lambeth is listed with sugar production at Leinster Plantation (Lambeth and Wells); on Bayou Huffpower at Meredith Plantation (Lambeth and H.P. Robert) and with another on Bayou Clair, and Lambeth and Cullum on Lucky Hit Plantation [See Champomier; and William Lambeth, U.S. Census of Avoyelles Parish, 1850]. Champomier also published such statements for 1840-49; 1850-51; and 1851-1852].

  165. The amount of free time available to slaves varied from plantation to plantation according to the owner. The regulation on a given plantation had a great deal to do with how much of their food the slave or the master was expected to furnish. Gray writes:

  Slaves were never expected, however, to provide all of their food from their gardens, as in some of the West India Islands. Probably the nearest approach to this in the South was in Louisiana, under the French regime, where masters sometimes gave slaves all of Saturday and Sunday to work on slave crops, but suspended their rations in those days. [See Gray, 564]

  Louisiana has many rainy days, and these would have had some effect on free time as well. Field work was not possible, and the limited amount of work that could be accomplished under shelters would have given some free time to the slave. Still, of course, as Gray states: “The actual wellbeing of slaves, however, was dependent not so much on laws as on the humane instincts and economic interest of the master, and the power of neighborhood opinion. The latter was undoubtedly an important source of protection” [See Gray, 517].

  166. Christmas celebrations were not the only entertainment slaves enjoyed. Most forms of entertainment depended upon the slave himself or herself and their ability to make the most of any time afforded them from work. The African tradition of oral expression and movement in interpreting emotions proved a priceless legacy in surviving the restraints imposed by slavery.

  According to other sources, Christmas was by no means the only time for celebrating. The diary of a soldier of the Seventy-Fifth New York Regiment of Infantry, edited by historian Walter Prichard, had this entry:

  —Tuesday 19th (1864)—

  Staid in camp all day. We are in the district that formed the theatre of Solomon Northup’s bondage. Old Epps’ plantation is a few miles down the Bayou and Epps himself is on his plantation, a noted man made famous by the circumstances of his owning Solomon Northup. Plenty of Negroes are found about here who say that they knew Platt well and have danced to the music of his fiddle often. [See Prichard, “Forest Diary of the 75th New York Regiment”]

  The houses of the slaves formed villages. Blacks congregated on their front galleries during the evenings to relax and talk among themselves.

  167. There was a wealth of food available in the streams and in the woods. “No objections are made to hunting,” [See Twelve Years a Slave, 200] and fishing in the Boeuf and other streams nearby was a part of life.

  168. Solomon/Platt’s remembrance of the Christmas music provides a record of the rap music of that day. Modern rap traces its roots back through such early African-American music and then further to Africa:

  The beginnings of rap music are to be found hundreds of years ago and an ocean away from the black urban neighborhoods of the United States. In many West African countries, music-making was the province of the griots, male and female professional singers and storytellers who performed using a variety of techniques against a background of drums and other musical instruments. Among the techniques used by a griot was call and response, in which a solo verse line is alternated [answered] by a choral response of a short phrase or word.

  Griots were entertainers, keepers of history, and commentators on events of the present. “A griot is required to sing on demand the history of a tribe or family for seven generations,” Paul Oliver writes, “and, in particular areas, to be totally familiar with the songs of ritual necessary to summon spirits and gain the sympathy of ancestors. . . He also must have the ability to extemporize on current events, chance incidents, and the passing scene. [Griots’] wit can be devastating and their knowledge of local history formidable.” The griot’s position in society was that of keeper of records and more. Griots were highly esteemed, and as Wolfgang Bender observes, “The Griots are highly referred to as the archives and libraries of this part of Africa. Thus the famous proverb, ‘whenever a griot dies, a library dies.’” They were interpreters of current politics, transmitting messages and orders from the governing power to the people. As musicians with contacts with other musicians outside the court, they were able to learn the opinion of common people and could convey sentiments of the populace to the ruler.

  In an oral culture, a culture without written records, a griot held a place of great importance. [See Haskins, 13-15]

  Evidently Solomon Northup did not describe the singing and dancing among the black people that was omnipresent. Perhaps it
s very omnipresence is why he didn’t bring that to the ghost writer’s attention. Those gifts of oral expression came as a priceless part of their cultural inheritance from generations of ancestors. It was spontaneous. It was universal among them. I wrote about it in the 1930s on Bayou Boeuf:

  . . . the sound of those Negro voices singing still echoes over the years. Many a summer night when the windows were flung open everywhere to catch what breezes might stray through the bayou country, I have sat, enthralled, and heard the clear sweet voices ring out from St. Philip Baptist Church at Loyd Bridge in what to me is unrivaled beauty. They sang for me too, and I knew the tragedy and beauty and joy and misery of plantation life. So I felt with the surge and flow of life’s ecstasy and pain, so exquisitely blended, the music they poured into the warm air of the old country church. The words didn’t matter so much; you got the whole story from the sound of it! One memorable day my grandmother walked with me across the bayou to the home of a mother and daughters acting out a little drama on their own gallery.

  The vivid portrayals of Bible stories, told in the bayou lingo, were superb. If there were names to those songs, nobody knew them; but I remember especially the brilliant spectacle drawn by five women singing in a manner so convincing that you walked right through the pearly gates with them.

  The five—if you are under the spell of the old folk song—have just been admitted through the gates of heaven. Gabriel has blown his horn, and St. Peter has checked them off his list. They are standing, dazzled at the splendor and beauty that surrounds them.

  The youngest of the five is the first to speak. “Sit down,” she suggests to the other four. Perhaps she is tired from the journey all the way from earth to heaven.