With undisguised smugness (as if they had anticipated precisely this outcome), punctuated with proper expressions of alarm, outrage, and exasperation, occasionally tempered with a degree of commiseration, the dispossessed slaveholding class observed the fatal effects of emancipation on the Negro character and the plantation economy. Everywhere he went in the South, a northern journalist reported, people talked about little else. “Let conversation begin where it will, it ends with Sambo.” Expecting the worst, the white South prepared to believe almost anything, and with few exceptions it heard only an accumulation of irritations, grievances, and horror tales. The incidents and themes kept repeating themselves, resting as they did on long-held assumptions about the character and limited capacity of the African race. Released from the care and discipline of the master, “no longer stimulated by the ‘Must!’,” the freedman by his behavior revealed how necessary that bondage had been. He refused to work, preferring a life of idleness, dissipation, and vagrancy; and even when he worked, “what is done is badly done.” He entertained extravagant notions about his freedom—“idleness, plenty of good food and fine clothes,” not to mention that imminent forty acres and a mule. His natural inclination to theft manifested itself even more blatantly in freedom. “I’m sure they were all thieves in Africa. Wherever you read about them they’re always the same.” Freed from all restraint, he had become “fearfully licentious,” “saucy and rude,” “insubordinate and insolent,” “lazy, thieving, lying, ignorant, brutish,” “shiftless, improvident, idle,” “skulking, shuffling, and worthless,” and “an unmitigated nuisance.” After all that had been done for him, he evinced “not as much gratitude … as many of the inferior animals.” Although his legal status had been altered, his basic character remained the same, and that only invited future troubles. “Thar ain’t no good side to ’em,” an old South Carolina planter explained. “You can’t find a white streak in ’em, if you turn ’em wrong side outwards and back again.… All the men are thieves, and all the women are prostitutes. It’s their natur’ to be that way, and they never’ll be no other way. They ain’t worth the land they cover.”18
If planters suspected their blacks of deliberately slowing the pace of labor, few of them cared to deal with the more obvious implications of such a move. Rather, they preferred to assign responsibility not only to peculiar racial characteristics but to lax discipline, Federal interference, and, perhaps most critically, a rising generation of blacks who had not been inculcated with a proper regard for time, industry, and the Protestant work ethic. “The old hands are passing away,” a Texas planter lamented. “The young ones do not learn to work. No authority is exercised by parents to teach them to work or understand the value of time, industry and economy.” Under present conditions, an Arkansas planter concurred, the number of blacks “trained from childhood to hard labor” was rapidly diminishing and the new generation was therefore bound to be “worthless.” The same considerations prompted an Alabama planter to rely on his “old, trained hands” to make a crop. “Such as were once considered secondrate,” he observed, “are now the best.” Actually, these were simply variations on what had become a popular postwar theme among whites—that unless blacks were properly controlled and trained, the African race under conditions of freedom would revert back to barbarism.19
But if whites quickly interpreted the work habits of their former slaves as conclusive proof of racial degeneration, the newly freed black workers chose to view their introduction to free labor quite differently. What many planters defined as a slowdown was often the freedmen’s refusal to work up to their previous exploitative level. And what many planters viewed as an unwillingness to work and rebellious behavior proved in some instances to be nothing more than a well-earned, albeit brief respite from the rigorous plantation routines that had characterized the freedmen’s previous lives. “No rest, massa, all work, all de time; plenty to eat, but no rest, no repose,” was the way an elderly South Carolina freedman described his life as a slave; he was much happier now, he added, if only for the “chance for [a] little comfort.” How could the planter class, moreover, deny to their former slaves a privilege they had flaunted so often in their presence? If there were “lazy” and “improvident” freedmen, a black clergyman declared, they were simply modeling themselves after the masters and mistresses they had observed for so many years. “They never worked for their own living,” he said of the planters, “and hence their slaves imitate their former owners. Who is to blame?” Slavery itself, another observer noted, had taught that a gentleman was a person who lived without working. “Is it wonderful,” he then asked, “that some of the negroes, who want now to be gentlemen, should have thought of trying this as the easiest way?”20
Even if few ex-slaves had the wherewithal to aspire to be “gentlemen,” they did have certain strong convictions about the perquisites of their new status. What was freedom all about if not the chance to work less than they had as slaves and to have more leisure time for themselves, their families, and their garden plots? As one freedwoman in South Carolina remarked, she had not yet experienced any freedom, for she was working just as hard as ever. When pressed to work harder, a Georgia freedman “indignantly” inquired of his new employer, who happened to be a Northerner, “what the use of being free was, if he had to work harder than when he was a slave.” More often than not, the slowdown was a way for newly freed black men and women to dramatize to themselves the distinction between their former and present positions—to know “de feel of bein’ free.” The inclination to work at their own pace also reflected for many ex-slaves the limited possibilities for achievement as landless agricultural laborers—if freedom could not mean “getting ahead,” it could at the very least mean not working hard.21
While planters preferred to compare how many bales of cotton were produced under slavery and under freedom, their former slaves searched for ways to break away from a dependency and a day-to-day routine that seemed all too familiar. “Missus done keep me in slave times totin’ milk, an’ pickin’ cotton, an’ now de black ’uns is free, … ’pears like we hev tu tote all de milk, an’ pick de cotton, an’ work jes’ de same.”22 Within the closer confinement and supervision of the households, where it proved difficult for blacks to reconcile their new freedom with the demands of domestic service, the quest for personal autonomy and individual worth often took on an even greater urgency than in the fields.
2
AFTER THE WAR, Charles and Etta Stearns, both of them “uncompromising” abolitionists, came to the South, where they acquired ownership of a plantation in Columbia County, Georgia. The name they gave to their place, “Hope On Hope Ever Plantation,” signified their optimism about the transition to free black labor. Within days after their arrival, Etta began to reorder the household. That was when the trouble began. Margaret, the cook, was a woman of considerable independence and sensitivity, outspoken on behalf of her rights and prerogatives, and determined that no person should infringe upon them without her consent. It required only a minor incident—an order to wash the dishes in a different way—to bring to the surface her feelings about the new arrangements and her new mistress. Planting herself in the middle of the room, facing Etta Stearns, Margaret made it clear that she was “gwine to be cook ob dis ere house, and Ise want no white woman to trouble me. You white folks spose, cause you white, and we all black, that us dunno noffin, and you knows eberyting.” Removing her yellow turban from her head, and waving it in her hands, she declared in a voice loud enough to reach the more than attentive black laborers outside:
Now missus, youse one bery good white woman, come down from de great North, to teach poor we to read, and sich as that; but we done claned dishes all our days, long before ye Yankees heard tell of us, and now does ye suppose I gwine to give up all my rights to ye, just cause youse a Yankee white woman? Does ye know missus that we’s free now? Yas, free we is, and us ant gwine to get down to ye, any more than to them ar rebs.
Upon hearing �
��this harangue,” the overseer rushed in, seized Margaret by the neck of her dress, and dragged her out unceremoniously, while exclaiming, “Shut up, you damn black wench, or I’ll beat your brains out.” Turning to his employers, he remarked, “Never mind her, Mrs. Stearns; these niggers have no more sense or manners than a mule; but I’ll teach her not to insult white people.” When Margaret subsequently returned to the house, she was “mild as a lamb” and washed the dishes as ordered but when told the next day to clean the cupboards, rebellion flared again. “Black folks don’t work on Sunday,” she announced. Etta Stearns cleaned the cupboards.23
The refusal to take any more “foolishment off of white folks” (native whites and Yankees alike) reflected the determination of many freedmen and freedwomen to stake out a larger degree of personal autonomy for themselves. Families accustomed to servants and absolute obedience often had to look no further than to their own households to Observe the strange, ominous, sometimes shocking manifestations of black freedom. How was any family to know when a long-time black faithful had reached the breaking point, and as a free person no longer felt obliged to contain the rage and resentment within her? “You betta do it yourself,” a Charleston servant suddenly told her mistress after being ordered to scour some pots and kettles. “Ain’t you smarter an me? You think you is—Wy you no scour fo you-self.” On the Pine Hill plantation in Leon County, Florida, Emeline had served as the cook for many years; the white family thought of her as “a great pet,” a favorite of the children, and a faithful worker. On May 20, 1865, around dinnertime, the mistress’s daughter searched for Emeline (“who has always professed to love me dearly”) in her accustomed place in the kitchen but failed to find her. Hastening to Emeline’s house, she found her dressed in her best Sunday clothes, preparing to attend an emancipation picnic sponsored by three regiments of black soldiers stationed nearby. When reminded of her kitchen obligations and the expected guests for dinner, the long-time servant retorted, “Take dem [storeroom and pantry] keys back ter yer Mother an’ tell her I don’t never ’spects ter cook no more, not while I lives—tell her I’se free, bless de Lord! Tell her if she want any dinner she kin cook it herself.” Admittedly “hurt and dazed” by this encounter, the white woman left silently. “They are free, I thought; free to do as they please. Never before had I had a word of impudence from any of our black folks but they are not ours any longer.… I have learned a lesson today: we must not expect too much of ‘free negroes.’ ”24
Although such outbursts from servants were rare, many white families might have preferred them to the more subtle transformation by which their once faithful domestics became unrecognizable men and women. After five months with his freed slaves, a Georgia planter found them “obviously changing in character every day.” Even Frances Butler Leigh, who had been so impressed with the devotion of her father’s slaves, wondered if she had been premature in her judgment. Visiting the plantation on St. Simon’s Island, she found her household staff reduced both in numbers and in the quality of their service: Alex “invariably is taken ill just as he ought to get dinner,” while Pierce “since his winter at the North is too fine to do anything but wait at table. So I cook, and my maid does the housework …” Emma Holmes, on the other hand, described in admiring detail the faithful service rendered by “the few who remain with us,” including a servant who still asked permission to leave the premises and apologized profusely when he once returned late. But she added: “These things are so unusual, that I have noticed them particularly.”25
The rate of “desertion” among the house servants during and after the war should have given sufficient warning that this traditionally loyal class of blacks could behave in independent and unpredictable ways. That was no less true of those who chose to remain with the families they had served as slaves. Like Adele Allston of South Carolina, many a plantation mistress came away with mixed emotions about the postwar conduct of their household staffs.
I can never feel kindly towards Nelly again.… Phebe gets into an ill humor occasionally and jaws me, but on the whole she is very good. I have agreed to give her $50 a year and Aleck the same, but Aleck has been gone for a week and I think he will possibly not return.… I fear Milly is tired being good and faithful. She appears discontented.
Within the intimacy and closeness of the Big House, the slightest incident, misunderstanding, or exchange of words could precipitate a confrontation, and in the aftermath of emancipation the sensibilities of both whites and blacks could be easily provoked. Even while ostensibly carrying on their normal duties, domestics had a way of irritating their mistresses or arousing their suspicions. “The servants torment me,” a South Carolina woman wrote her sister, “but I suppose they do the same to everybody.” The household in Augusta, Georgia, over which Eva B. Jones presided underwent a crisis when some money she had carefully saved and secreted suddenly disappeared. The only question was which of the servants might be the thief, and the evidence pointed to a freedwoman who was about to become a bride “and has therefore indulged in some extravagancies and petty fineries.” Upon hearing of this incident, Mary Jones, Eva’s mother-in-law, responded with that familiar sigh, “We cannot but feel such ingratitude.” If she offered little more comfort, that may have reflected preoccupation with her own persistent domestic irritations: Flora was “most unhappy,” working very little, and apparently ready to leave; Jack had moved into a Savannah boardinghouse, “where I presume he will practice attitudes and act the Congo gentleman to perfection”; and Kate and Flora, in “an amusing conversation” she overheard, talked about how “they are looking forward to gold watches and chains, bracelets, and blue veils and silk dresses!” To Mary Jones, it all seemed rather hopeless, and she had given up trying to anticipate the behavior of her domestics. “It is impossible to get at any of their intentions, and it is useless to ask them. I see only a dark future for the whole race.”26
As long as their servants retained the precious right of mobility, neither the master nor the mistress could determine or control the outcome of domestic conflicts. If servants felt insulted or compromised, or if the employer resorted to the whip, they often chose to leave. Until additional help could be hired, the mistress might try various expedients to fill the gap. Eva Jones distributed the household duties among the remaining servants and even assumed a few of the tasks herself. “Our menage has been frightfully reduced,” she informed her mother-in-law, “and of our numerous throng there remains a seamstress (who has had to lay aside her old calling to become cook, washer, and chambermaid) and one who attends to everything else about this unfortunate establishment.” Nor was it uncommon to transfer field hands to the house and make domestics of them. To replace the “faithful” Patty, the Grimball family of South Carolina hired a field hand and his family. With less success, Frances Butler Leigh employed several “raw field hands, to whom everything was new and strange, and who were really savages.” Sara Pryor, ill in bed and unable to care for her children, replaced her maid (who left on Christmas morning) with a field hand named Anarchy, but she soon determined that the new servant’s hands, “knotted by work in the fields, were too rough to touch my babe.”27
Unprepared for the frustrations that close contact with whites could provoke, some initiates into domestic service had brief tenures. On a Mississippi plantation, the wife of a field hand was transferred to the house; within a short time, troubles developed, words were exchanged, she claimed she had been insulted, and she left her household duties undone and remained in the quarters “doing nothing.” Some domestics, on the other hand, found even more traumatic a sudden transfer from the house to the fields to replace defecting laborers. Lizzie Hill, who had been a slave in Alabama, remembered vividly the change in her duties after she returned to the plantation to be back with “Old Mistis” again; the position she had previously occupied in the house had been filled, and “I’s had a hard time workin’ in de field.” The more typical experience was that of Dora Franks, a former Mississippi slav
e, who left her household duties to accompany her brother after the war. Upon resettling on a new plantation, she found herself in the fields and she would never forget her initiation into that kind of labor: “I’d faint away mos’ ever’ day ’bout eleven o’clock. It was de heat. Some of ’em would have to tote me to de house. I’d soon come to. Den I had to go back to de fiel’.” Such considerations may well have been in the minds of some domestic servants when they chose to remain in their same positions after emancipation.28
Now that the last vestiges of old-time fidelity and devotion—however tenuous these proved to be—were being stripped from the master-servant relationship, white families needed to develop new sources of labor. When Gertrude Thomas resorted to hiring, she found herself dismayed by the experiment, and yet she revealed more about her own exploitative standards than the incapacity of the employee.
Monday I had a woman to wash for me. Hired her for thirty cts a day. I think it probable that she was one of the recently made free negroes. I had no idea what was considered a task in washing so I gave her all the small things belonging to the children … She was through by dinner time [and] appeared to work steady. I gave her dinner and afterwards told her that I had a few more clothes I wished washed out. Her reply was that “she was tired.” I did not for a minute argue with her. Said I “If you suppose I engaged a woman to wash for me by the day and she stops by dinner time, If you suppose I intend paying for the days work you are very mistaken.” Turning from her I walked into the house. She afterwards sent in for more clothes and washed out a few other things. So much for hiring by the day.
But to her delight, she managed to hire a cook—an elderly mulatto woman who claimed that her previous employer had sent her off to procure a new position. Unfortunately, when Mrs. Thomas informed her husband of the new acquisition, he insisted that the woman obtain a note from her old employer before he would consent to hire her. This was not an uncommon practice among white families after emancipation, partly a matter of personal security but also intended to check the propensity of newly freed blacks to change or improve their positions. To no one’s surprise, the cook never returned.29
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